Morrison urges Trump to stop release of prisoner who killed Australian soldiers

Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison urged US President Donald Trump to ensure an Afghan soldier who carried out an insider attack and killed three  Australian soldiers was not part of the group of 400 hard core Taliban prisoners expected to be released within days. 

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, officials from the Department of Defence contacted the families of the three Australian soldiers on Friday, warning the soldier, Hekmatullah, would likely be one of the prisoners released as part of peace negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

Hekmatullah has spent seven years in prison after killing Lance Corporal Stjepan Milosevic, Sapper James Martin and Private Robert Poate in August 2012 while they were playing cards, the Herald reported.

Australia’s Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Defence Minister Linda Reynolds raised the matter with their US counterparts in Washington during talks late last month, and Morrison has written to Trump asking that Hekmatullah not be released, the Herald stated. 

“This has been a matter of very regular and persistent petitioning on our behalf,” Morrison said in Canberra on Monday.

“It is a matter of keen interest to Australia, and we’ve reminded them of that. Hekmatullah was responsible for murdering three Australians, and our position is that he should never be released. We do not believe that his release adds to peace in this region.”

“And that is the position that we will continue to maintain and we’ll maintain it strongly. I can’t promise you the outcome we all want here, but it’s certainly the outcome that we will continue to press for as hard as we can,” he said. 

This comes after Sunday’s decision by the Loya Jirga, or grand council, in Kabul, that the remaining 400 controversial prisoners be released in accordance with the Doha agreement between the US and the Taliban in February this year. 

Following Sunday’s resolution, President Ashraf Ghani issued a decree ordering the release of the prisoners so that intra-Afghan talks can start as soon as possible.