Whistleblower and former military lawyer David McBride pleads guilty to three charges relating to his decision to leak confidential material to journalists at the ABC. Whistleblower David McBride has pleaded guilty to three charges after an ACT supreme court upheld a commonwealth intervention to withhold key evidence it deemed as having the potential to jeopardise “the security and defence of Australia” if released.
Originally facing five charges, the former military lawyer pleaded guilty in the ACT supreme court on Friday afternoon to three offences, including stealing commonwealth information and passing that on to journalists at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The ABC subsequently used the material as the basis for an investigative series exposing war crimes in Afghanistan, titled The Afghan Files