Court rejects Australian soldier’s defamation appeal over Afghan killings

Decorated seasoned Ben Roberts-Smith failed to person reports that helium ‘murdered 4 Afghan men’ quashed.

Australia’s astir decorated surviving warfare seasoned has mislaid an entreaty against a civilian tribunal ruling that implicated him successful warfare crimes portion serving successful Afghanistan.

Australia’s Federal Court dismissed the entreaty lodged by Ben Roberts-Smith connected Friday, successful the latest setback for the 46-year-old’s combat to salvage a estimation tattered by reports that helium took portion successful the execution of 4 unarmed Afghan prisoners.

Three national tribunal judges unanimously rejected his entreaty of a judge’s ruling successful 2023, which said Roberts-Smith was not defamed by paper articles published successful 2018 that accused him of a scope of warfare crimes.

In the earlier ruling, a justice had recovered that the accusations were substantially existent to a civilian modular and Roberts-Smith was liable for 4 of the six unlawful deaths of noncombatants helium had been accused of.

Delivering the entreaty court’s verdict, Justice Nye Perram explained that the reasons for the determination are being withheld owed to nationalist information implications that the authorities indispensable consider.

The marathon 110-day proceedings is estimated to person outgo 25 cardinal Australian dollars ($16m) successful ineligible fees that Roberts-Smith volition apt beryllium liable to pay.

He has nevertheless said helium volition combat to wide his sanction successful Australia’s High Court, his past avenue of ineligible appeal.

“I proceed to support my innocence and contradict these egregious spiteful allegations,” Roberts-Smith said successful a statement. “We volition instantly question to situation this judgement successful the High Court of Australia.”

Tory Maguire, an enforcement of Nine Entertainment that published the articles Roberts-Smith claimed were untrue, welcomed the ruling arsenic an “emphatic win”.

“Today is besides a large time for investigative journalism and underscores wherefore it remains highly valued by the Australian people,” Maguire said.

Australia deployed 39,000 troops to Afghanistan implicit 2 decades arsenic portion of United States and NATO-led operations against the Taliban and different equipped groups.

Perth-born Roberts-Smith, a erstwhile SAS corporal, had won the Victoria Cross – Australia’s highest subject honour – for “conspicuous gallantry” successful Afghanistan portion connected the hunt for a elder Taliban commander.

An Australian subject study released successful 2020 recovered grounds that Australian troops unlawfully killed 39 Afghan prisoners and civilians. The study recommended 19 existent and erstwhile soldiers look transgression investigation.

It’s not wide whether Roberts-Smith was 1 of them.

Police person been moving with the Office of the Special Investigator, an Australian probe bureau established successful 2021, to physique cases against elite SAS and Commando Regiments troops who served successful Afghanistan betwixt 2005 and 2016.

The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Canberra Times said successful a bid of reports successful 2018 that Roberts-Smith had kicked an unarmed Afghan civilian disconnected a cliff and ordered subordinates to sprout him.

He was besides said to person taken portion successful the machine-gunning of a antheral with a prosthetic leg, which was aboriginal brought backmost to an service barroom and utilized arsenic a drinking vessel.