FROM OUR CORRESPONDENTS IN NUREMBERG AND THE HAGUE

PHOTOGRAPHS OF the bloodied corpses of freshly strangled German war criminals are said to be doing the rounds in the Australian Defence Forces following Senator Jacqui Lambie’s declaration that the Ben Roberts Smith blame game needs to climb considerably higher in the ranks than corporal in what she said was the ultimate boys’ club.

“Lambie fair laid into the higher ranks in her barrage in the senate, and it clearly has some officers shitting themselves,” says an insider. “Occasionally you will hear someone roar out ‘Shoot straight you bastards, don’t make a mess of it!’, said to be the last words of Breaker Morant before they executed him.”

“Legal firms in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra have been inundated with inquiries and it’s said some senior barristers are already on retainers,” a prominent legal academic says. “And that’s got the polies in Federal Parliament very nervous. You never know where a thing like this will stop. Memories of Slobodan whatisname*, the Serbian bloke, being dragged before the Hague Tribunal are still fresh in the memory. Aussie politicians like to retire to directorships and junket jobs and patronage, not a four by six cell or a wooden stake peppered with 7.62 mm bullets. At least the death penalty isn’t on the cards. So the firing squad or even the slow desperate strangulation in a botched hanging is off the table. For now anyway. Unless the Taliban get hold of any of them. I don’t believe we have an extradition agreement with Afghanistan, do we? You know you can always tell what faith we have in a country’s future by whether we have an extradition treaty with it. I don’t believe we have one with Ukraine either.”

*Milosevic