Key Takeaways:
Ben Roberts-Smith, a recipient of Australia’s highest military honor, was arrested Tuesday at Sydney Airport and charged with five counts of war crime murder for alleged killings in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012. The 47-year-old former Special Air Service Regiment (SAS) corporal's arrest marks a pivotal moment in Australia's struggle to confront alleged atrocities committed during the long war.
"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," Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett told reporters. She added that Roberts-Smith allegedly either shot the individuals himself or ordered his subordinates to do so.
The charges follow years of investigative journalism and a landmark defamation case that brought shocking allegations to light. Roberts-Smith unsuccessfully sued three newspapers for defamation over 2018 articles that accused him of war crimes. A federal judge in 2023 dismissed his lawsuit, finding the newspapers had proven the substantial truth of four of the six murder allegations, including the killing of an unarmed teenager and kicking a handcuffed man off a cliff.
This prosecution is a major test of Australia’s willingness and capacity to prosecute its own personnel for international crimes,” said Douglas Guilfoyle, a professor of international law and security at UNSW Canberra. “It goes directly to questions of accountability and our standing under international law.”
The explosive defamation trial, which concluded in 2023, provided a grim preview of the criminal case. The court found it substantially true that Roberts-Smith had murdered a man with a prosthetic leg, which was later used as a drinking vessel by soldiers. While the civil case required a lower burden of proof—on the balance of probabilities—the new criminal charges must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. His final appeal in the defamation case was dismissed by the High Court in September 2025.
Fellow SAS soldiers testified against him, with some breaking down after giving evidence. "What's been really difficult, though, is those brave SAS witnesses," said Nick McKenzie, one of the journalists Roberts-Smith sued. Their testimony will likely be central to the criminal proceedings.
The arrest is a direct outcome of a four-year investigation by the Office of the Special Investigator (OSI), a body established in 2021 to probe allegations raised in a damning 2020 military report. Known as the Brereton Report, the inquiry found credible evidence that Australian special forces were responsible for the unlawful killing of 39 Afghan prisoners, farmers, and civilians.
The OSI has investigated 53 allegations of war crimes, with 10 investigations still ongoing. Roberts-Smith is the second veteran to be charged; former SAS soldier Oliver Schulz is awaiting trial for the alleged murder of an Afghan man in 2012. The investigations have been hampered by a lack of access to crime scenes in Afghanistan since the Taliban's return to power in 2021.
"We don't have access to the crime scenes, we don't have photographs, site plans, measurements, the recovery of projectiles, blood spatter analysis, all of those things we would normally get at a crime scene," said Ross Barnett, the OSI's director of investigations.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
