🔴 Australia’s most decorated living soldier has lost a defamation case against newspapers that accused him of war crimes in Afghanistan
since 2018 suggested he went beyond the bounds of acceptable military engagement, including descriptions of brutal treatment of defenceless Afghan civilians.
The articles, citing other soldiers who said they were there, said Roberts-Smith had shot dead an unarmed Afghan teenage spotter, and kicked a handcuffed man off a cliff before ordering him to be shot dead. Roberts-Smith sued the papers for portraying him as someone who “broke the moral and legal rules of military engagement”. He called the reports false and based on claims of failed soldiers who were jealous of his accolades, and sought unspecified damages.Justice Anthony Besanko ruled that the veteran committed a slew of war crimes while in Afghanistan including the unlawful killings of unarmed prisoners.
The newspapers had sought to defend their reports by proving the claims were true, and presented other soldiers and former soldiers as witnesses in court who corroborated them. The strategy largely worked. The papers had reported that Roberts-Smith pressured a lower-ranking Australian soldier to execute an elderly, unarmed Afghan to “blood the rookie”, said Judge Besanko, adding they proved that account true.
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