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Australia’s most decorated living soldier is expected to be charged with five counts of war crime murders after he was arrested at Sydney airport on Tuesday.
Ben Roberts-Smith, a recipient of the prestigious Victoria Cross, was arrested at the domestic terminal after a flight from Brisbane, Australian federal police and the Office of the Special Investigator said.
He will be charged with five counts of war crimes in connection to the murder of five people in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012, Australian Federal Police (AFP) said. The maximum penalty for each charge is life imprisonment.
In 2018, several Australian newspapers published allegations that Mr Roberts-Smith had committed war crimes in Afghanistan, including murdering civilians and ordering subordinates to carry out executions while serving in Australia’s Special Air Service Regiment (SASR).
The 47-year-old sued for defamation, arguing the reports falsely portrayed him as a criminal who disgraced his country and its military, but the outlets defended their journalism as truthful.
The court ultimately sided with the newspapers on the civil standard of the “balance of probabilities”, finding key allegations substantially true. The allegations have yet to be tested to the criminal standard and Mr Roberts-Smith has strongly denied any wrongdoing, calling the reports “egregious” and “spiteful”.
Among the most serious findings from the judge in the defamation case were that Mr Roberts-Smith kicked a detained Afghan man, Ali Jan, off a cliff in 2012 and then ordered a subordinate to shoot him dead. The court also found that during a 2009 raid he killed a disabled detainee and ordered the execution of an unarmed elderly man.
The court also heard claims that soldiers took the prosthetic leg from a victim as a trophy.
In September last year, the High Court said it would not hear his appeal against a federal judge’s civil court finding in 2023 that Mr Roberts-Smith likely killed non-combatants unlawfully in 2009 and 2012.
Three federal court judges had unanimously rejected his appeal against that finding in May.
The High Court decision left the war veteran with no more legal options in a defamation case he started in 2018 when newspapers accused him of a range of war crimes.
Australian Federal Police (AFP) commissioner Krissy Barrett said it will be alleged the victims were unarmed Afghan nationals who “were not taking part in hostilities at the time of their alleged murder”.
She said the charges come as a result of a “complex” investigation that was undertaken “thoroughly and meticulously” since 2021 by the AFP and Office of the Special Investigator (OSI), according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
“It will be alleged the victims were shot by the accused or shot by subordinate members of the ADF in the presence of, and acting on the orders of the accused,” she said.
Prime minister Anthony Albanese refused to comment on the case after Mr Roberts-Smith’s arrest on Tuesday.
“I have no intention of prejudicing a matter that clearly is a legal matter, and that’s before the courts, and any comment would do so,” the PM told reporters in Canberra.
Mr Roberts-Smith is a former SASR corporal who was awarded the Victoria Cross and the Medal for Gallantry, among others, for his service in Afghanistan. Around 39,000 Australian soldiers served in Afghanistan and 41 were killed.
Some SASR colleagues have joined calls him to become the first of Australia’s Victoria Cross winners to be stripped of the highest award for gallantry in battle.
Mr Roberts-Smith’s life and service in Afghanistan is the subject of an exhibit at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. The display has been repeatedly updated to reflect the allegations against him, and the museum said in a statement that it would again review the exhibit following his arrest.
