{"id":592380,"date":"2026-04-08T01:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T01:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/592380\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T01:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T01:08:09","slug":"ben-roberts-smith-does-not-apply-for-bail-in-first-court-appearance-on-war-crime-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/592380\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Roberts-Smith does not apply for bail in first court appearance on war crime charges"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">War veteran Ben Roberts-Smith will remain in custody after his lawyers made no application for bail in his first court appearance since his arrest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The 47-year-old was charged with five counts of the war crime of murder, related to his time in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012, on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The Victoria Cross recipient is accused of being involved in the murders of unarmed Afghan nationals who were not taking part in hostilities and were detained.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Mr Roberts-Smith was arrested at Sydney Airport after getting off a flight from Brisbane on Tuesday morning and charged as part of a five-year investigation by the Australian Federal Police and the Office of the Special Investigator.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Prosecutors will allege that during several tours of Afghanistan with the Special Air Service (SAS) Regiment, Mr Roberts-Smith allegedly shot unarmed civilians and ordered subordinates in the unit to shoot other Afghan nationals.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">He has long denied the allegations since they first emerged in media reports in 2018.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A man with a blurred face is arrested by uniformed police officers.\" class=\"Image_image__5tFYM ContentImage_image__DQ_cq\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775610489_938_14b6097e8f01b87b9f93f30195e42d6d.jpeg\" loading=\"lazy\" data-component=\"Image\" data-lazy=\"true\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"Typography_base__sj2RP FigureCaption_text__zDxQ5 Typography_sizeMobile12__w_FPC Typography_lineHeightMobile20___U7Vr Typography_regular__WeIG6 Typography_colourInherit__dfnUx\" data-component=\"Typography\">Mr Roberts-Smith was arrested at Sydney Airport on Tuesday. (Supplied: Australian Federal Police)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Mr Roberts-Smith, who spent the night in Sydney&#8217;s Silverwater Correctional Complex, was not required to appear when the case came before Judge Lucas Swan in a virtual court on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">His defence lawyer Jordan Portokalli sought an in-person listing for later in the day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;We&#8217;re seeking that the matter be relisted for mention preferably today at Downing Centre, but we understand that might be a bit of a pipe dream, but as soon as is possible,&#8221; Mr Portokalli said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Judge Swan agreed the request was &#8220;very much so a pipe dream&#8221; and said that both parties had already spoken with the chief magistrate about this on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">He directed Mr Portokalli to contact the Chief Magistrate&#8217;s Office again to ask for a mention hearing for &#8220;today or at a future date&#8221; before the matter is expected to return to court on June 4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"War veteran Ben Roberts-Smith will remain in custody after his lawyers made no application for bail in his&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":592381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,17192,288650,288970,83250,288972,288750,289217,289216,1108,18231,54965,44,20975,288971],"class_list":{"0":"post-592380","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-bail","11":"tag-ben-roberts-smith-charged","12":"tag-ben-roberts-smith-war-crimes","13":"tag-ben-roberts-smith","14":"tag-ben-roberts-smith-afghanistan","15":"tag-ben-roberts-smith-arrested","16":"tag-ben-roberts-smith-bail","17":"tag-ben-roberts-smith-court","18":"tag-court","19":"tag-defamation","20":"tag-murder-charge","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-nine","23":"tag-war-crime-murder"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}