Australia’s most decorated living veteran, Ben Roberts-Smith, faces war crime charges on allegations that he killed five unarmed Afghans while serving in Afghanistan from 2009 and 2012, police and media reported yesterday.
Police have not confirmed the name of the 47-year-old former soldier who was arrested yesterday, but he has been widely reported in the media to be Roberts-Smith, a former Special Air Service (SAS) Regiment corporal who was awarded both the Victoria Cross and Medal of Gallantry for his service in Afghanistan.
Police charged him with five counts of war crime murder. He was to remain in custody overnight and make his first court appearance today, a police statement said. He could apply for release on bail today.
Photo: AFP / Australian Federal Police
Roberts-Smith is only the second Australian veteran of the Afghanistan campaign to be charged with a war crime.
Former SAS soldier Oliver Schulz, 44, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of war crime murder. He is accused of shooting Afghan man Dad Mohammad three times in the head in an Uruzgan Province wheat field in May 2012.
War crime murder carries a potential sentence of life in prison. It is a federal crime in Australia, defined as the intentional killing in the context of armed conflict of a person who is not taking an active part in hostilities, such as civilians, prisoners of war or wounded soldiers.
Photo: AP
Police arrested Roberts-Smith at Sydney Airport after he arrived on a flight from Brisbane, Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett said.
“It will be alleged that the victims were not taking part in hostilities at the time of their alleged murder in Afghanistan. It will be alleged the victims were detained, unarmed and were under the control of ADF members when they were killed,” Barrett told reporters, referring to the Australian Defence Force.
“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,” Barrett added.
A civil court has already found similar allegations against Roberts-Smith credible in a defamation suit he brought after several newspapers published articles in 2018 accusing him of a range of war crimes. In 2023, a federal judge rejected his claims and ruled that he likely killed four noncombatants unlawfully in 2009 and 2012.
However, while the civil court found the war crimes allegations were mostly proved on a balance of probabilities, the new charges would have to be proved in a criminal court to a higher standard of beyond reasonable doubt.
In September, Australia’s High Court said it would not hear an appeal, ending his chances of overturning the ruling.
The charges follow a military report released in 2020 that found evidence that elite Australian SAS and commando regiment troops unlawfully killed 39 Afghan prisoners, farmers and other noncombatants.
Barrett said few soldiers were involved in the new allegations.
“The alleged conduct related to these charges is confined to a very small section of our trusted and respected ADF which helps keep this country safe,” Barrett said.
“The overwhelming majority of our ADF do our country proud. Today’s charges are not reflective of the majority of members who serve under our Australian flag with honor, with distinction and with the values of a democratic nation,” she added.
The Office of the Special Investigator was established to work with police on the war crime allegations. The office’s director of investigations Ross Barnett said allegations of 53 war crimes had been investigated and 39 of those investigations had concluded without charges. About 40,000 Australian military personnel served in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2021, of whom 41 were killed.
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
RSS