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May 28th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda Families of Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan are said to be disgusted by media reports about the handling of the remains of their fallen loved ones.
Australian Defence Force (ADF) chief David Hurley says he is deeply disappointed by the “sensationalised” News Limited reports into how three diggers – Michael Fussell, Brett Wood and Andrew Jones – were mistakenly placed in the lids of upside-down caskets.
General Hurley has conceded that on three occasions – once in 2008 and twice in 2011 – soldiers were placed in upside-down caskets during the initial leg of their repatriation from Afghanistan.
But he says the mistakes were later corrected and the bodies were “correctly oriented” at all times.
“Let me make it very clear that all inquiries to date have shown that the bodies were treated with the utmost respect and dignity,” Gen Hurley told a Senate estimates committee on Monday.
Gen Hurley says the families of the fallen men have described the reports as “un-Australian” and “incredibly insensitive”.
“All three families have expressed their disgust that a newspaper would seek to make a story of these issues,” he said.
Gen Hurley says the issue was raised in mid-2011 and is the subject of an Inspector-General Australian Defence Force (IGADF) inquiry initiated in January this year.
He says he spoke to the journalist and the paper’s editor in an effort to make sure the facts were accurately reflected but he was not happy with the result.
“I don’t think it reflects the extreme steps that members of the ADF go through to recognise the dignity of our war dead,” he said.
Gen Hurley also took issue with the report’s claims that the remains of Afghan insurgents who died in custody were lost, a local boy was illegally detained and a prisoner was shot dead during interrogation.
The Australia Defence Association executive director Neil James said the reports were “disgraceful”.
“We have to do something about the poor quality of some of this so-called defence reporting,” he said.
The committee also touched on investigations into claims made by Sapper Lazarus Louis, who was accidentally shot through the chest when he handed his rifle to his superior in Northern Kandahar in January 2011.
ADF Inspector-General Geoff Early said he was looking into six matters relating to the incident and some allegations made about earlier investigations into it.
“On current indications I’m expecting a draft report in about August,” he said.
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