Australia’s most decorated living war veteran unlawfully killed prisoners and committed other war crimes in Afghanistan, a judge ruled on Thursday in dismissing the claims by Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith that he was defamed by media.
Federal Court Justice Anthony Besanko ruled that the articles published in 2018 were substantially true about a number of war crimes committed by Roberts-Smith, a former Special Air Service Regiment corporal who now is a media company executive.
Besanko found Roberts-Smith, who was also awarded the Medal of Gallantry for his Afghanistan War service, “broke the moral and legal rules of military engagement” and disgraced Australia through his conduct.
The ruling is regarded as a significant win for press freedom against Australia’s extraordinarily restrictive defamation laws following a hard-fought trial over 110 court hearing days.
Proven allegations included that Roberts-Smith, the son of a judge, used a machine gun to shoot a prisoner with a prosthetic leg in the back at a Taliban compound codenamed Whiskey 108 in Uruzgan province in 2009. He kept the man’s prosthetic as a novelty beer-drinking vessel.
