He is due to appear in a New South Wales court later today.<\/p>\n
The arrest comes after Roberts-Smith unsuccessfully sued Nine Newspapers over a series of stories about war crime allegations relating to his deployment in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
Federal Court Justice Anthony Besanko in 2023 found, on the balance of probabilities, that Roberts-Smith was involved in the murder of four unarmed men, ruling against him in his defamation suit against the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age and Canberra Times.<\/p>\n
The findings were made on the balance of probabilities, which is less than the criminal standard of beyond reasonable doubt.<\/p>\n
Roberts-Smith\u2019s appeal to the Full Court of the Federal Court was dismissed last year, and he was refused leave to appeal by the High Court.<\/p>\n
Among the findings that Roberts-Smith was seeking to overturn was the allegation that he took part in the murder of a handcuffed shepherd, Ali Jan, at Darwan in September 2012.<\/p>\n
Roberts-Smith also disputed findings that he was involved in the killings of two prisoners at a compound called \u201cWhiskey 108\u201d in 2009.<\/p>\n
According to the allegations, Roberts-Smith shot one man in the back and directed a \u201crookie\u201d soldier to shoot another prisoner.<\/p>\n
Justice Besanko also found that Roberts-Smith, during an operation at Chinartu, directed members of the Afghan partner forces to shoot a man following the discovery of a cache of weapons.<\/p>\n
Roberts-Smith continues to deny the allegations and the court\u2019s findings, and previously said: \u201cSunlight is said to be the best disinfectant, and I believe one day soon the truth will prevail.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked about the arrest at a press conference, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese refused to comment, saying that to do so could \u201cprejudice\u201d the case.<\/p>\n
\u201dI have no intention of commenting on a matter that\u2019s clearly before the courts,\u201d Albanese told reporters.<\/p>\n
Pressed further on whether Attorney-General Michelle Rowland was consulted, Albanese refused to \u201cconfirm anything\u201d.<\/p>\n
He added it was \u201cvery important that there not be any political engagement\u201d.<\/p>\n
Opposition leader Angus Taylor was similarly tight-lipped, saying \u201cit\u2019s important we respect\u201d the legal process.<\/p>\n
But he added: \u201cWe also need to respect the role of our special forces\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe vast majority of our special forces do the right thing,\u201d Taylor said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are incredible people serving this nation and playing an extremely difficult role.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m proud to support them each year in Pollie Pedal, and have done for many years now.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis process needs to take its course, but it should not detract from the respect we show for our special forces in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n
More to come.<\/p>\n
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor\u2019s Picks<\/a>, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week\u2019s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He is due to appear in a New South Wales court later today. The arrest comes after Roberts-Smith…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[74,2681,1554,11924,1975,1135,1558,15361,6129,5504,2740,42,296,12898,35199,43,192625,5764,1734,40,38,41,39,6149],"class_list":{"0":"post-367194","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-after","9":"tag-airport","10":"tag-alleged","11":"tag-arrested","12":"tag-at","13":"tag-australian","14":"tag-been","15":"tag-ben","16":"tag-crimes","17":"tag-following","18":"tag-former","19":"tag-headlines","20":"tag-into","21":"tag-investigation","22":"tag-investigations","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-robertssmith","25":"tag-soldier","26":"tag-sydney","27":"tag-top-news","28":"tag-top-stories","29":"tag-topnews","30":"tag-topstories","31":"tag-war"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}