would only be based on what people had told him. He explained that what the patrol commanders told him would have been put in a report and that report provided to the operations team who would have put it in an operational summary. Person 81 read it and "cleared it" for release.
670 Based on the assumption that only a minute or two elapsed between Person 41 going into a nearby room and then re-emerging into the courtyard to see the execution of EKIA56, the applicant submits that not only were the applicant, Persons 4, 5 29, 35 and 38 in the courtyard, but Persons 40, 41, 42, 43 and 81. All of those persons must have seen two fighting age males emerge from the tunnel and be PUC'd and would have seen or heard the alleged executions, the subject of Person 41's evidence. I have already indicated that I reject the assumption.
671 I mention at this point that in relation to EKIA57 who, on the respondents' case, was executed by the applicant outside the compound, Person 14 claimed that everyone in his patrol witnessed the alleged execution by the applicant of EKIA57 and that included Persons 6, 24, 73, 80 and 68. The applicant submits that even if it may be doubted that all members of Person 6's patrol witnessed the alleged execution, Person 14 was adamant that Person 6 saw it. Person 24 claimed that the topic of an execution and a blooding had been discussed at his Patrol Debrief with Person 6 following the mission.
672 The applicant submits that even if only a fraction of the SASR operators claimed by the respondents to have been present in the close vicinity of the alleged executions by the applicant and Person 4 were, in fact, present, it would have been all but impossible for Person 5 and the applicant to get away with falsely reporting the circumstances in which EKIA56 and EKIA57 were killed. The applicant submits that enough members of the troop would have seen and/or heard sufficient of the relevant conduct alleged by the respondents for the patrol commanders at the troop debrief to immediately reject Person 5's account. Person 43 who was a patrol commander claimed that he had understood that PUCs had been executed during that mission. On his version, he must have done nothing to challenge Person 5's account about the engagement of squirters at the troop debrief. Furthermore, if the evidence of Persons 14 and 24 is accepted, Person 6 knew about at least the alleged execution by the applicant and did not challenge Person 5's account at the troop debrief either. The applicant submits that the respondents' case theory about false reporting presupposes, at the least, the existence of a widespread failure to challenge a false account of how two PUCs came to be executed during the W108 mission or, at worst, a widespread conspiracy by at least four patrol commanders
