National

Ben Roberts-Smith suffers massive defamation loss

By AAP Newswire

Jun 1, 2023

Ben Roberts-Smith (file image) — Ben Roberts-Smith had been in an almost five-year legal battle with three media outlets. -AAP Image

Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith committed a slew of war crimes while in Afghanistan including the murder of unarmed prisoners, a Federal Court judge has found.

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Roberts-Smith suffered the massive court loss on Thursday afternoon, ending an almost five-year legal battle between the former-SAS corporal and three media outlets.

Justice Anthony Besanko found that a number of 2018 reports published by The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Canberra Times were substantially true about a number of war crimes committed by Mr Roberts-Smith.

These claims included that Mr Roberts-Smith executed a prisoner with a prosthetic leg by firing a machine gun into his back at a compound called Whiskey 108 in 2009 and that heÂ kicked an unarmed, handcuffed farmer named Ali Jan off a cliff into a river bed in September 2012 at Darwan.

Reports of domestic violence towards Mr Roberts-Smith's mistress were found to have been defamatory, however the court found that this would not have further damaged the ex-solder's reputation.

The judge ordered the three cases to be dismissed.

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By AAP Newswire

Australian Associated Press