Ben Roberts-Smith, the former Australian soldier and Victoria Cross recipient, was notably absent from court on Thursday as a judge ruled he had lost his defamation case and was proven to be a war criminal. Instead, he was on the Indonesian resort island of Bali. Justice Anthony Besanko found that, on the balance of probabilities, Roberts-Smith murdered unarmed civilians while serving in Afghanistan.
Roberts-Smith had sued three Australian newspapers—the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald, and the Canberra Times—over 2018 articles alleging he was a murderer and a war criminal. The judge dismissed his case, leaving him with a potential legal bill of around $35 million.
The judgment detailed three proven murders. In 2012, in Darwan, Roberts-Smith kicked a handcuffed prisoner, Ali Jan, off a cliff, then ordered a subordinate to shoot him. In 2009, at Whiskey 108, he ordered the shooting of an elderly man and machine-gunned a disabled man with a prosthetic leg, whose leg was later used as a drinking vessel by other soldiers. A third killing at Chenartu in 2012 was also proven.
Two other murder allegations were not proven, but the truth defence succeeded. An allegation of domestic violence was not proven but deemed contextually true. The judge's full reasons are to be published later.
