Heston Russell is suing the ABC over online stories suggesting he was involved in shooting and killing an Afghan prisoner in 2012.
The ABC went “rogue” and engaged in “shoddy, uncorroborated, reckless” journalism by suggesting former commando Heston Russell was involved in killing an Afghan prisoner, his barrister has said on the first day of a defamation trial against the broadcaster.
“In addition to publishing articles about my client ... the ABC has been issuing press releases [about its reporting and the case],” Chrysanthou said.“When you look at it in combination ... it is quite an inexcusable abuse of power that the ABC has engaged in. conveyed a series of six defamatory meanings, when read together as one article. The articles were connected because the second linked to the first. Russell is also suing over a related television broadcast.The first article said a former US marine, given the pseudonym Josh, had alleged Australian special forces shot dead an Afghan prisoner in 2012 after they were told they would not fit on a US aircraft.
The second article repeated Josh’s allegation, while a “key point” that appeared alongside the main body of text said his allegation concerned November platoon. The ABC said later that the key point – in a dot point list – was an error and corrected it to remove the reference to the platoon. The article included a denial from Russell, who was named and pictured.
ABC journalists Mark Willacy, left, and Josh Robertson arrive at the Federal Court in Sydney on Friday.To make good the defence, which became law in July 2021 in most states and the ACT, the ABC and its journalists will need to persuade the court they reasonably believed the publication of the reports was in the public interest.
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