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Location confusion must not detract from civilian casualties

Media statement

29 March 2017

Location confusion must not detract from civilian casualties, a dead girl and serious breaches of defence force rules

We have been receiving media calls about our statement today and add these specific comments:

There has been confusion over the location of the events in our book Hit and Run. We have the right villages but it seems the slightly wrong location; the defence force has the wrong village name but the right location. This is unfortunately not surprising in an isolated area of mountains with no roads or detailed maps.

However, we are absolutely certain about the details at the heart of the story – which we got from both SAS members on the raid and the villagers – which ismost of the casualties were woman and children, that civilian houses were destroyed and that later a prisoner was beaten and tortured.

The defence force and government have come up with nothing that addresses these central allegations. They are just being tricky if they try to use the confusion over the location to avoid facing up to the awful things that happened on the SAS raid.

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