{"id":368043,"date":"2026-04-07T15:43:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T15:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/368043\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T15:43:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T15:43:11","slug":"australias-most-decorated-soldier-arrested-over-alleged-war-crimes-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/368043\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia’s most decorated soldier arrested over alleged war crimes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Australian SAS soldier Ben Roberts-Smith could face life in prison for alleged war crimes involving the murder of unarmed Afghan civilians.<\/p>\n

Australia’s most decorated living soldier was arrested at Sydney Domestic Airport this morning after extensive allegations he murdered Afghans while deployed in the country between 2009 and 2012.<\/p>\n

Video was released of his arrest earlier this evening, where it appeared he was led away from a plane and jetbridge. <\/p>\n

Police commissioner Krissy Barrett declined to name Roberts-Smith, but confirmed a 47-year-old former Australian Defence Force (ADF) member would be charged with five courts of war crime murder, which carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.<\/p>\n

Ben Roberts-Smith could face life in prison after the alleged murder of unarmed Afghan civilians. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

“It will be alleged the victims were detained, unarmed and were under the control of ADF members when they were killed,” she told reporters.<\/p>\n

“It will be alleged the victims were shot by the accused or shot by subordinate members of the ADF in the presence of and acting on the orders of the accused.”<\/p>\n

She noted the victims were not taking part in hostilities at the time of their alleged murder in the war zone.<\/p>\n

The allegations include that Roberts-Smith intentionally caused the death of two people in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012.<\/p>\n

\"Ben<\/p>\n

Ben Roberts-Smith. (Source: Getty)<\/p>\n

He is also accused of aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring another person to commit a murder on three separate occasions.<\/p>\n

Asked if others were involved in those matters, the Office of the Special Investigator said investigations were ongoing.<\/p>\n

Roberts-Smith is expected to appear in a NSW court either late on Tuesday or on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n

The Office of the Special Investigator, comprised of 54 investigators, launched an investigation into the soldier in 2021.<\/p>\n

In collaboration with the Australian Federal Police, it has launched 53 investigations involving allegations of war crimes by ADF members in Afghanistan, 39 of which have been provisionally finalised.<\/p>\n

\"Ben<\/p>\n

Ben Roberts-Smith. (Source: Getty)<\/p>\n

“The OSI has been tasked with investigating literally dozens of murders alleged to have been committed in the middle of a war zone in a country 9000 kilometres from Australia,” OSI director Ross Barnett said.<\/p>\n

“Because we can’t go to that country…. we don’t have access to the crime scenes… we don’t have access to the deceased, there’s no post-mortem… so it’s a very challenging starting point for all these investigations.”<\/p>\n

Roberts-Smith will be the second Australian soldier to be charged with war crimes under domestic law after another ex-SAS soldier, Oliver Schulz, was charged in 2023 over the war crime of the 2012 murder of a young man in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Schulz has maintained his innocence. His matter is yet to go to trial, but the case could provide a blueprint for Roberts-Smith.<\/p>\n

A Federal Court judge previously found Roberts-Smith was responsible for a number of killings in a blockbuster defamation trial against Nine newspapers.<\/p>\n

The articles were published in 2018 and the alleged war criminal has maintained his innocence.<\/p>\n

Justice Anthony Besanko’s findings were on the balance of probabilities, rather than the criminal standard of beyond reasonable doubt.<\/p>\n

Justice Besanko found Roberts-Smith machine-gunned an unarmed prisoner in the back, taking the man’s prosthetic leg back to Australia to use as a beer drinking vessel, during a 2009 raid on a compound codenamed Whiskey 108.<\/p>\n

He also said Roberts-Smith stood silent while a rookie soldier was ordered to execute an elderly Afghan prisoner so he could be “blooded”.<\/p>\n

Justice Besanko found one of the newspapers’ central claims – that Roberts-Smith had kicked an unarmed and handcuffed man, Ali Jan, off a 10-metre cliff and then ensured he was shot – was true.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Australian SAS soldier Ben Roberts-Smith could face life in prison for alleged war crimes involving the murder…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368044,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[85,67,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-368043","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-crime-and-justice","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368043","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=368043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}