Dear Ministry of Defence,

Please provide a report on the number of war crimes allegations reported to the Ministry involving NZDF, since September 11, 2001.

Yours faithfully,

Rodney Parsons

Dear Information,

The Burnham Inquiry reported that a range of concerns, including allegations of war crimes, were raised with them but were found to be outside of the scope of the inquiry and proposed to be dealt with by other processes.

Based on your feedback, it would appear that no further reviews have been undertaken to investigate these concerns. If not, please confirm this. If there have been reviews, including courts of inquiry, please provide those reviews.

Yours sincerely,

Rodney Parsons

Dear Mr Schmidt,

I appreciate your response. Unfortunately you haven't responded to my question.

Please provide the information related to what has occurred with the war crimes allegations that fell outside of the Burnham Inquiry. Whatever the structures setup, NZDF has a responsibility to follow the laws of armed conflict and therefore to investigate allegations of war crimes. Outside of the war crimes covered by the Burnham Inquiry, please provide the information requested or confirm that no additional reviews have been undertaken by NZDF. Alternatively, if you're withholding information, please outline the basis for withholding the information.

Yours sincerely,

Rodney Parsons

Dear Ministerial Services,

During the inquiry, a range of matters not directly related to the scope of the inquiry were raised, including allegations of war crimes in the months and years before and after. I'm a little surprised you want me to detail the events?

Yours sincerely,

Rodney Parsons

Dear Ministerial Services,

Please provide information on all war crimes reported to NZDF, covering NZDF deployments to Afghanistan.

In particular, please provide information on all alegations of trophies taken of Taliban between 2001 and 2013, in particular body parts removed or allegedly removed, and the steps taken to apologise to the families for whom the body parts were taken from. If you would like me to detail the several incidents, I'd be happy to- please confirm you want this disclosed openly on the internet.

Yours sincerely,

Rodney Parsons

Dear Mr Motley,

As you would be fully aware, the Burnham Inquiry heard from a range of stakeholders who presented credible evidence of crimes in which NZDF personnel either perpetrated or were complicit in.

Since you've asked for these to be named on a public forum, I take it you have the authority to waive classification. I'm which case, I will start to drop feed examples, so you can check them one by one.

In the first example, during Op Watea, 1NZSAS personnel are alleged to have mutilated the bodies of enemy combatants, killed following release of explosive devices. Subsequently, materials (both human remains, weapons and other items) are alleged to have been collected, retained and returned to NZDF. The Op Watea image in Papakura's "Hunting Lodge" depicts elements of these, but needn't do so since the lodge is littered with illegal trophies- Kalashnikov's, paintings unlawfully removed, and bodily remains.

Not only is it alleged that in that this operation alone did 1NZSAS have a serious breakdown in operational discipline, that senior commanders (including one who later rose to the rank of CDF), were aware of this and had all personally seen and handled the unlawful trophies. Those senior commanders opted to allow the items to largely remain, despite being raised by multiple support service personnel.

Since I'm in possession of unclassified documents that confirm that 1) Multiple Brigadier-level and above officers were aware of these unlawful trophies (up to and including former CDF Short), 2) that multiple personnel reported these two NZDF commanders and those were briefed upwards, and 3) Up to and including CDF Short villified and victimized multiple whistleblowers in relation to this specific disclosure.

My question is, what has NZDF done about it and despite substantial documentary evidence confirming that 1) these trophies exist, 2) they are in fact, unlawful trophies, 3) Senior Officers including the officer overseeing ministerial services, chief of staff, multiple CDFs and Heads of Service, do you maintain that you were unaware of these and that there's therefore no documents to be released?

Would you like me to provide more, or would you prefer to answer my original questions honestly rather than play games?

Yours sincerely,

Rodney Parsons