Save<\/p>\n
You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n
Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n AAA<\/p>\n The NRL\u2019s first and only Afghan player has expressed his disappointment in the Brisbane Broncos for allowing Ben Roberts-Smith into their dressing sheds on the weekend<\/a>.<\/p>\n Omar Slaimankhel, who played five games for the New Zealand Warriors, and whose parents were forced to flee Afghanistan to neighbouring Pakistan by foot because of ongoing conflict in their homeland, was in China on business when he learned about Roberts-Smith spending time in the Broncos\u2019 inner sanctum at Suncorp Stadium on Sunday.<\/p>\n The former soldier has been charged with multiple war crimes<\/a> over the alleged murders of unarmed Afghan civilians and prisoners.<\/p>\n Roberts-Smith faces a maximum penalty of life imprisonment for each charge. The former SAS corporal has rejected the charges, saying, \u201cI categorically deny all of these allegations\u201d.<\/p>\n Sources with knowledge of the situation not authorised to speak publicly confirmed on Monday Roberts-Smith had accompanied his daughters to the Broncos\u2019 game against St George Illawarra<\/a> after they were invited to attend by the spouse of a club staff member who knows the girls through school connections.<\/p>\n Roberts-Smith, the same sources confirmed, is friends with Broncos welfare officer Adam Walsh, a former SAS soldier with whom he served overseas.<\/p>\n The NRL were not commenting on Roberts-Smith\u2019s impromptu dressing-room visit, and said it was a matter for the Broncos. The Broncos would not comment.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Knowing what his own family had been through back home, Slaimankhel told this masthead it was disappointing to hear about Roberts-Smith\u2019s game-day appearance.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s deeply troubling that someone charged with war crimes continues to be given a platform in public spaces,\u201d Slaimankhel said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis isn\u2019t about my Afghan background, I speak first as a human being.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is yet another chapter in a decades-long pattern of dehumanising people from the Middle East, and quietly burying the crimes of imperialism.<\/p>\n \u201cTheir [Broncos] invitation to him says everything.\u201d<\/p>\n Roberts-Smith has been accused of kicking an Afghan civilian off a cliff<\/a>, and directing a subordinate to execute a man in September 2012. He is also alleged to have executed a prisoner with a prosthetic leg during an Easter Sunday mission in Afghanistan in 2009.<\/p>\n![\"Omar](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/e7daf60fa8b76e2905813b1308ad29bc81834432a11a7e6346a67cc80baa1648.jpeg\")
Omar Slaimankhel remains the only player with Afghan heritage to play in the NRL.NRL<\/p>\n