The most decorated soldier in Australia is accused of committing war crimes.

 

The allegations were at the centre of a seven-year defamation battle (Image: Getty Images)

Australia's most-decorated living soldier has been charged over allegations he committed war crimes in Afghanistan.

 Ben Roberts-Smith, who resigned from the military in 2013, was taken into custody at Sydney airport on Tuesday. He will appear in court on five counts of war crime murder. He will spend the night in a cell before the Wednesday bail hearing. A defamation judgement in 2023 found the former corporal in Australia's Special Air Service Regiment (SAS) had killed several unarmed Afghans.

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 The 47-year-old recipient of the Victoria Cross denies any wrongdoing and has previously stated that the allegations against him were "egregious" and "spiteful." These allegations have not yet been evaluated to a criminal standard. The civil trial was the first time a court looked into claims that Australian forces committed war crimes. Roberts-Smith argued the alleged killings occurred legally during combat or did not happen at all, and last year lost an appeal against the Federal Court finding.

 At a news conference in Sydney on Tuesday, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) confirmed a 47-year-old former soldier had been arrested and said he would be charged with killing unarmed detainees while serving in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012.

 He is charged with one count of committing a war crime of murder, one count of jointly committing a crime, and three counts of assisting, abetting, counseling, or procuring a crime.

According to Commissioner Krissy Barrett, "it will be alleged that the victims were shot by the accused or shot by subordinate members of the ADF [Australian Defence Force] in the presence of, and acting on the orders of, the accused." In 2020, a landmark investigation known as the Brereton Report found "credible evidence" that elite Australian soldiers unlawfully killed 39 people in Afghanistan, recommending 19 current or former ADF members be investigated.

 A specialist team - called the Office of the Special Investigator (OSI) - was set up to do so.  So far, only one more person has been charged. The arrest of Roberts-Smith, according to OSI director of investigations Ross Barnett, was a "significant step" in "challenging circumstances."

"The OSI has been tasked with investigating literally dozens of murders alleged to have been committed in the middle of a war zone in a country 9,000km from Australia," he said.

 "We can't go to that country, we don't have access to the crime scenes...  We lack photographs, site plans, measurements, projectile recovery, and analysis of blood spatter... We are unable to access the deceased." Barrett went on to say that "a very small section of our trusted and respected ADF" was the only group that had been accused of misconduct.

She stated, "The majority of the ADF make our country proud." Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stated earlier on Tuesday that he would not comment on the case because it is pending before the courts. "[It] is very important that there not be political engagement," he said.

 The Australian War Memorial stated in a statement that it will revisit its Ben Roberts-Smith exhibit. The allegations and the outcome of his defamation case have been updated on a plaque that is displayed alongside his uniform and medals. At the time Nine newspapers first published reports of the allegations in 2018, Roberts-Smith was considered a national hero, having been awarded Australia's highest military honour for single-handedly overpowering Taliban fighters attacking his SAS platoon.

 In a bid to clear his name, he launched a high-profile legal battle - which spanned seven years, cost millions of dollars and was dubbed by some as Australia's "trial of the century".

 However a Federal Court judge found - on the balance of probabilities - that Roberts-Smith had taken part in at least four murders, a judgement upheld on appeal.

 Anthony Besanko found that Roberts-Smith had twice ordered unarmed men be shot dead to "blood" rookie soldiers, and was involved in the deaths of a handcuffed farmer he kicked off a cliff and a captured Taliban fighter whose prosthetic leg was taken as a trophy and later used by troops as a drinking vessel.

Source: BBC