How Australia’s most decorated soldier committed war crimes

The veteran had made claims of defamation against The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Canberra Times over their articles which contained details of his alleged war crimes as well as alleged acts of domestic violence. While the reports of domestic violence were found to be unproven and defamatory, the judge found that they would not have further damaged the veteran’s reputation.

The judgment, which came after a mammoth year-long defamation trial, is not a criminal finding of guilt, but a determination on the civil standard of the “balance of probabilities”.

Robert-Smith’s lawyer, Arthur Moses, has asked for 42 days to consider lodging an appeal to the Full Bench of the Federal Court, NPR reported.

Roberts-Smith’s alleged war crimes

Ben Roberts-Smith was first deployed to Afghanistan as a SAS soldier in 2006. He would go on to have a total of six deployments to the country, the last being in 2012.

In April 2009, two Afghan men – including one with a prosthetic leg – were imprisoned after an assault on a compound dubbed Whiskey 108. Roberts-Smith allegedly killed the man with the prosthetic leg using a machine gun and directed a “rookie” soldier to kill the other, as a form of initiation known as a “blooding”, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. He allegedly kept the prosthetic leg as a “novelty beer drinking vessel”, NPR reported.

In August 2012, Afghan National Army sergeant Hekmatullah killed three unarmed Australian soldiers at their base. In September, Roberts-Smith was part of a raid searching for Hekmatullah in a village called Darwan. While in the village, he allegedly kicked an unarmed and handcuffed Afghan villager named Ali Jan off a small cliff. He then allegedly ordered two other soldiers to drag the man under a tree, where he was shot dead.

Roberts-Smith had allegedly also bullied a rookie soldier to kill an Afghan prisoner as a part of an initiation ritual in October 2012, The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and The Canberra Times had reported. However, the soldier, who allegedly pulled the trigger, refused to give evidence on grounds of self-incrimination, compelling newspapers to drop this allegation.

In the same month, Roberts-Smith allegedly directed an Afghan soldier, via an interpreter, to shoot a prisoner or direct one of his subordinates to do it in Khas Oruzgan. He also allegedly shot a young Afghan prisoner himself, and boasted to a fellow soldier that it was “the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen”. The judge, however, found that this allegation was not established.

But the judge also found the newspapers had proven that Roberts-Smith bullied and assaulted his comrades.

A fallen hero

Prior to 2018, when articles about his misdeeds in Afghanistan first came out, Ben Roberts-Smith enjoyed a stellar public reputation. He was Australia’s most famous and well-decorated soldier of this generation.

In 2006, Roberts-Smith was awarded the Medal for Gallantry for his operations as a patrol scout and sniper in Afghanistan.

In 2011, he received the Victoria Cross, the highest military decoration for Australian soldiers, for his actions during a helicopter assault into Tizak, Kandahar province in 2010. Roberts-Smith, faced with relentless heavy machine gun fire, killed three insurgents with little regard for his own safety.

He was also awarded the Commendation for Distinguished Service as part of the 2014 Australia Day Honours. Roberts-Smith was dubbed the 2013 Father of the Year, for his devotion to his family, by the Australian Father’s Day Council.

After the damning court ruling, questions have been raised about his military honours. Ben Saul, a professor of international law at the University of Sydney, told The Age that, subject to appeal, the War Memorial should also remove its dedicated Roberts-Smith display and Roberts-Smith should be stripped of his Victoria Cross medal. A recipient has not been stripped of their Victoria Cross since 1908.

Australia’s reckoning with war crimes in Afghanistan

The landmark judgement in the Roberts-Smith case comes on the back of a much larger conversation around war crimes committed by Australian troops in Afghanistan – a conversation which is growing over time.

In 2020, the Brereton Report, released by the country’s military chief Angus Campbell after a four-year-long investigation, found credible evidence of instances, at various points from 2009 to 2013, of serious unlawful actions by members of the Australian Defence Force, including allegedly killing 39 people during operations in Afghanistan in violation of international law.

The damning report recommended that Campbell refer 36 incidents to the Australian Federal Police for criminal investigation, involving a total of 19, publicly unnamed, individuals. It blamed a culture “focusing on prestige, status and power” for the excesses.

Australia Defence Association executive director Neil James said the damning defamation judgement against Roberts-Smith would “help clear the air in the public debate” about war crimes in Afghanistan.

“A lot of people have been in denial, promoting the nonsense that because no one has been convicted we can’t say whether war crimes occurred,” James said.

The fall of Australia’s most decorated soldier might just be what it takes for the country to truly reckon with war crimes in its past and prevent such excesses in the future.

“This is terrible for our country, terrible for the SAS, terrible for our national security,” defence spokesperson Andrew Hastie told The Age. “No one wants to see this but until we deal with it, we can’t move forward,” Hastie said.