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After years in hiding from the Taliban, an Afghan ally meets the father of the slain digger he served with
In an emotional reunion, former interpreter Farid Raman has met the family of Australian soldier, Robert Poate, who was killed by a rogue Afghan soldier in an attack Mr Raman survived.
Published 14 August 2022 11:09am
Updated 1 August 2023 1:06pm
By Rashida Yosufzai, Abdullah Alikhil
Source: SBS
Image: Former Afghan interpreter Farid Raman (left) meets Hugh Poate, father of Robert, who was killed by a rogue Afghan soldier 10 years ago. (SBS)
Key Points
- Hugh Poate's son, Robert, was killed by an Afghan soldier near Tarin Kowt 10 years ago.
- For the first time, the grieving father has heard the account of an Afghan interpreter who was there at the time.
- Farid Raman witnessed two green-on-blue attacks, including a 2011 attack where he was wounded seven times.
Hugh Poate often hears from people who claim to have been there on the night his soldier son was murdered.
The Canberra father has spoken to several sources on the ground to put the pieces together around that tragic night at a base near Tarin Kowt in Afghanistan a decade ago.
His boy, Private Robert Poate was playing cards with his comrades, Sapper James Martin and Lance Corporal Stjepan Milosevic when they were fired upon by a rogue Afghan soldier named Hekmatullah in 2012.
The story has been told countless times in news reports, in Mr Poate’s own book, and at an official inquest.
Sapper James Martin, Lance Corporal Stjepan Milosevic and Private Robert Poate, were killed in Afghanistan. Credit: Australian Defence Force
But Mr Poate has never before heard it from an Afghan witness. Until now.
For the first time, Afghan interpreter Farid Raman is sharing his story about what happened that night, when he watched as Hekmatullah shot and killed the Australian soldiers who were just metres away from him.
“Everyone was crying, everyone was shouting, everyone was freaked out,” he tells SBS Pashto and SBS News.
Ahead of dual milestones - the 10th anniversary of the 2012 "green-on-blue" attack, and the first anniversary of the fall of Kabul - Mr Raman has come out of years in hiding from the Taliban, to share his story.
A green-on-blue or "inside" attack is a NATO term referring to instances in which coalition soldiers were attacked by rogue members of the Afghan army.
Mr Raman's account puts new pieces of the puzzle together on that pivotal night, including whose phone Hekmatullah stole to communicate with the Taliban, as well as what happened during a 2011 attack in which three other soldiers died.
Farid Raman as an interpreter assisting Australian forces in Afghanistan. Credit: Farid Raman
'They were my friends'
As the eldest son in his family, Mr Raman was expected to support his family. He joined an interpreter hire company in 2010, hoping it would be a steady source of income.
Some time later, he was posted to Kandahar to support an Australian mentoring task force at the forward operating base of Sorkh Bed.
“It was an absolutely fantastic time,” Mr Raman recalls.
“And it was a really friendly environment, in a really active environment in the job.”
He had no idea that only a few months later, he would barely survive the first of two green-on-blue attacks.
On that day in November 2011, he says he and his interpreter colleague Fahim were getting ready for a routine morning parade in Kandahar.
Farid Raman joined an interpreter hire company in 2010 before he started working alongside Australian forces. Credit: Farid Raman
The two interpreters were translating between the Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers and the Australian contingent who were training them, when a call came in.
“The insurgent, he's given a warning to the commander of the base over the phone, telling them that 'we are here, we are present in this location. But you got to stay in your limit',” Mr Raman recalls.
“While I was translating this, in the meantime, that (rogue soldier) Darwish has come out of the crowd somehow and is standing beside the base commander of the ANA and he's launching fire.
“I got my first shot to my left leg while I was translating the warning to the soldiers and that was like a microsecond decision for me to make to try to protect myself.
“He (Darwish) was using the rifle in a position to shoot on one line and then come back again and then go at another line because he was continuously firing.”
Mr Raman would be shot seven times, including as he lay cowering on the ground.
His friend Fahim wouldn’t survive. Three Australians, Captain Bryce Duffy, Corporal Ashley Birt, and Lance Corporal Luke Gavin all died in the attack.
Mr Raman would later have surgery to remove the bullets, but fragments of one are permanently lodged in his back.
“I've been told not to touch it. If I tried to remove it, half of my body's gonna die (be paralysed),” he says.
His efforts that day would later be commended by a senior Australian commanding officer.
“His support has been invaluable and we are deeply saddened that he was injured as a result of this callous act by a rogue Afghan soldier,” the Lieutenant Colonel wrote in a letter seen by SBS and addressed to Mr Raman.
It was barely a few months after his recovery when Mr Raman was back on the job, when the second attack occurred, in Uruzgan.
“I didn't want to give up, because those guys … those people were so good,” he says on why he decided to go back to work.
“My concern was that … I shouldn't be leaving my friends behind. And I didn't let (sic) them down.
“And I was missing them. I had to go back there.”
The enemy within the ranks
Mr Raman was stationed with Australian troops in Camp Wahab in Tarin Kowt.
He says he remembers Private Robert Poate as someone who always pushed himself and would go above and beyond for his friends.
“He was just wonderful,” the former interpreter says.
The ANA and Australian soldiers would often mingle in the same areas - they’d have breakfast and lunch together, and sometimes socialised.
“We were actually good friends with the (Australian) team. We knew each other’s names,” Mr Raman recalls.
On the night of August 29, 2012, the Afghans and Australians made camp around the turret of a Bushmaster.
An Afghan soldier named Hekmatullah was sitting next to Mr Raman, another interpreter and a few other Afghan troops. Robert Poate, James Martin and Stjepan Milosevic were playing cards a few metres away.
Hekmatullah left to arm himself for guard duty but instead of heading to the watchtower as expected, he came back to where Mr Raman and the Australian soldiers were sitting, opening fire on them.
Mr Raman remembers the chaos that followed, as the Australian soldiers tried to figure out what had happened.
“Tarjoman! Tarjoman! (interpreter! interpreter!),” Mr Raman recalls they called out to him, asking to get the Afghan soldiers down from the watchtower, where they mistakenly believed the rounds had come from.
“We took all the soldiers that were in the tower, we brought them down, they got arrested. And Hekmatullah got away, he ran away,” Mr Raman remembers.
Sept. 2, 2012: Long Range Patrol Vehicles carry fallen Australian soldiers to the C-130 Aircraft that will carry them on their journey from Tarin Kowt, Afghanistan to Australia. Source: AAP / Sergeant W. Guthrie
He says he believes it was Private Poate's armour that he helped carry to the helicopter after the soldier was shot.
“He didn't leave nothing (sic) behind while I supported it. And I was happy (I did that),” he says.
Mr Raman remembers carrying one of the wounded men to a nearby helicopter.
“He was injured on the right side, near the ribs. He had one shot. So I had to calm that down. I mean, it's just to give him more support of calming down,” he says.
In Hugh Poate’s book, Failures of Command: The death of Private Robert Poate, he writes about the interpreters who got the Afghan soldiers down from the watchtower.
He did not know the interpreter he had written about was in fact, Farid Raman.
Nor did he know the interpreter he had written about who had reported his mobile phone stolen the night before the attack - which was believed to have been used by Hekmatullah to communicate with the Taliban - was also Mr Raman.
It was only when Mr Poate and his wife Janny met Mr Raman last Wednesday, that those pieces of the puzzle came together.
Hugh Poate meeting Farid Raman for the first time at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. Source: SBS
‘You put your life on the line’
At the Australian War Memorial in Canberra just days before the anniversary of the 2012 attack, the extraordinary meeting took place.
Two strangers from different parts of the world, connected by tragedy, came together to share their grief and memories of Robert Poate.
In the commemorative area, just metres from where Private Poate's name is inscribed on the Honour Roll, Mr Raman walked up to meet the Poates for the first time.
Mr Raman expected a handshake from the Poates. Instead, he was embraced by Mr Poate.
“You put your life on the line - thank you for that,” Mr Poate told him.
“I spoke to the soldier who was sitting next to Robbie when he was killed, and he said to pass on his thanks to you.”
Mr Raman told Mr Poate he wished he could have done more on the night. He says he wants Private Poate's father to consider him as a second son.
“I’m really, really sorry for your loss,” Mr Raman said.
“They were my friends.”
Farid Raman and Hugh Poate met for the first time at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. Source: SBS
Moments later, the two would make the connection about the missing phone, when Mr Raman recounts how he had lost it the night before.
“It was your phone?” Mr Poate asks.
“It was my phone, yes,” replies Mr Raman.
The missing phone is what still keeps Mr Raman up at night. He fears for the security of his family members left behind in Afghanistan, who have been in hiding for several years, and who may have been compromised by the loss of the device.
He’s already lost one loved one, believed to be at the hands of the Taliban.
Mr Raman, like Mr Poate, is worried about the prison release of Hekmatullah, which was secured in a deal between the Taliban and the United States in 2020.
SBS News has confirmed the former soldier is now living freely under the safety of the Taliban, in the Afghan capital Kabul.
Mr Poate says he’s hoping justice will still be served. He wants his son’s killer eliminated in the same way that the US targeted Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri: in a targeted drone strike.
“Hekmatullah is a very dangerous man, as can be seen by the statements that he's made from his own mouth,” Mr Poate says.
“His sentence needs to be carried out; I'd like to see it happen, the three families would like to see it happen. All the soldiers who served with our son, and who served in Afghanistan, would like to see it happen.”
It’s a shared hope.
“As soon as … I got that news that Hekmatullah has been released, since then, I have no rest,” Mr Raman says.
Mr Raman says his family blames him for their predicament because his work with Australian forces has put their lives in danger.
He says his application for a humanitarian visa for them has made little progress beyond a letter acknowledging it had been received by the Department of Home Affairs, and his attempts to reach out to MPs for help have fallen on deaf ears.
“We've been promised that we will be rescued … by the ADF. But I don't know where are those words? Where are those promises? And I don't know how to get somewhere like I'm hanging in the air now. I don't know. I'm confused,” he says.
The Department of Home Affairs says it is working to ensure visa options continue to be available to Afghan nationals, both within Afghanistan and those who have been displaced.
“All visa applications will be processed in accordance with Government announcements and within program priorities, and assessed on an individual basis,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
Since the fall of Kabul in August 2021, Australia has resettled more than 2,300 former locally engaged employees - which include former interpreters and others who supported its mission in Afghanistan.
Supplied image obtained Monday, Sept. 23, 2013; An Australian CH 47 Chinook helicopter takes off in a cloud of dust at the construction site of a patrol base in Uruzgan Province. Source: AAP / Corporal Neil Ruskin
There are currently more than 200,000 applicants before the Department for refugee visas from Afghans fleeing the Taliban.
His desperation to help his family is the reason why Mr Raman has finally broken his silence, almost exactly a decade since the 2012 attack.
The director of the Australian War Memorial, Matt Anderson, says interpreters risked their lives as much as the Australian soldiers.
“They are absolutely united by that bond,” Mr Anderson says.
Interpreters resettled in Australia will soon be able to see their service recognised following the development of the War Memorial.
“Farid and others stood alongside Australia's men and women in some of the most hostile terrain on this planet. And they did so nobly, admirably and courageously, and their stories will be told here," Mr Anderson says.
Having survived two green-on-blue attacks, Mr Raman says he struggles with the memories of those two incidents.
He says he is seeking professional help for his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
“Those things are still in my mind. I tried to get rid of them, but it's not easy."
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