Arabic version: الإفراج المشروط عن ديفيد مكبرايد بعد 27 شهراً
According to The Guardian, former army lawyer David McBride was released from prison in Canberra on Thursday after serving his 27-month non-parole period. McBride had been jailed for his role in taking secret defence documents concerning the Afghanistan war and providing them to the media.
McBride received a maximum sentence of five years and eight months in May 2024. Attorney general Michelle Rowland approved his parole on Thursday. A spokesperson for Rowland confirmed the release, saying: “Mr McBride’s parole was considered and granted.” The spokesperson added that the government does not provide specific commentary or details on individual parole matters.
McBride pleaded guilty to three charges in November after the ACT supreme court upheld a commonwealth intervention to withhold evidence that the government said could jeopardise “the security and defence of Australia”. The charges included stealing commonwealth information and passing it to journalists at the ABC.
The court heard that McBride took 235 documents from defence offices, mostly in the ACT, between May 2014 and December 2015. Of those documents, 207 were classified as secret and some were marked as cabinet documents. He collected the material over 18 months, and it was used as the basis for The Afghan Files, an investigative series on war crimes committed by Australian defence personnel in Afghanistan.
In a statement after the decision, McBride thanked Rowland for “sparing us another long fight over the question of parole”. He also said he had been diagnosed with treatable lung cancer in its early stages and was expected to undergo surgery imminently. Former independent senator Rex Patrick and Information Rights Project founder Gabriel Shipton welcomed the decision.
