Former military lawyer David McBride will have waited four years and eight months before facing trial for allegedly leaking classified defence information to the media.
McBride’s case was mentioned briefly in the ACT supreme court on Thursday morning, the latest step in protracted legal proceedings that have been in train since March 2019.
The court heard during Thursday’s brief hearing that chief justice Lucy McCallum had ordered that a trial date must be found and that the trial must take place this year.
The trial was set down for 6 November, meaning McBride will have waited four years and eight months since he was formally charged at his first court appearance.
The prospect of court proceedings has been hanging over McBride for even longer, since he was arrested at Sydney airport after returning home from Spain in September 2018.
The trial is expected to last three weeks before justice David Mossop, who has experience in dealing with sensitive national security material through his hearing of the Bernard Collaery proceedings.
McBride is accused of leaking classified defence information to three senior journalists at the ABC and the then Fairfax Media newspapers.
The material later formed the basis of “The Afghan Files”, a 2017 ABC expose revealing allegations of misconduct by Australian special forces in Afghanistan, including possible unlawful killings. The disclosures also led to a much-publicised federal police raid on the ABC’s Sydney offices in 2019.
McBride has pleaded not guilty to five charges, including the unauthorised disclosure of information, theft of commonwealth property and breaching the Defence Act.
Commonwealth prosecutors flagged the 6 November trial date may cause them some difficulties, including with the availability of their counsel and witnesses. They plan to call 22 witnesses, the court heard.
But the date was suitable for McBride and lawyers for the commonwealth.
The matter has been complicated slightly by applications for suppressions and a mooted bid to have McBride protected as a whistleblower, which was ultimately abandoned.
Human Rights Law Centre senior lawyer Kieran Pender urged the commonwealth to intervene and end the prosecution.
“This case should never have commenced; but it is not too late for the attorney general, Mark Dreyfus KC, to end it,” he said. “Rather than prosecuting whistleblowers, the Australian government should get on with fixing whistleblowing law and ensuring accountability for Australia’s wrongdoing in Afghanistan.”
