By DPA,
Warsaw : Military prosecutors have brought charges against six Polish officers for claiming they had gone on patrols in Afghanistan when in reality they did not leave their base, the daily Rzeczpospolita reported Monday.
The soldiers would report in army documents that they had gone on patrols and were each able to get additional payments of up to 5,000 zloty ($1,735).
An officer reported the practice to military police when he found his colleagues – without his knowledge – had written him in for seven fictitious patrols.
The soldiers have pleaded guilty and face up to three years in prison.
Roman Polko, former head of Polish special forces unit GROM, told the daily that the idea of “additional payments for courage to leave the base shows why the mission is so ineffective”.
Poland currently has some 2,000 soldiers in Afghanistan taking part in the NATO mission against the Taliban.