A friend and former comrade of war veteran Ben Roberts-Smith has admitted the pair face a total of five murder allegations,including three aired for the first time on Thursday.
War,morality,the demands of justice and the role of journalism came to the fore in the defamation suit brought by the Victoria Cross winner this week.
A former SAS soldier has told Ben Roberts-Smith’s defamation case that the war veteran told him he would be required to kill prisoners in Afghanistan.
A former elite soldier will not be required to give evidence in Ben Roberts-Smith’s defamation case about an alleged shooting of an Afghan prisoner in 2012.
Three newspapers being sued for defamation by war veteran Ben Roberts-Smith say the evidence of a former soldier dubbed Person 66 may be a key to winning the case. But the soldier objects to giving evidence.
“I was simultaneously in love with him and afraid of him,” Roberts-Smith’s lover has told the Federal Court.
It started with her thinking he was perfect,she told the court. By the end,she said,he told her:“If you ... turn on me,I will burn your house down.”
The soldiers of the SAS were trained to withstand everything combat could throw at them,but the Roberts-Smith court case is stirring up difficult emotions.
A former elite soldier has told the Federal Court that he saw his former comrade Ben Roberts-Smith drop an Afghan man to the ground and machine-gun him in the back.
Did SAS soldiers discover locals hiding in a tunnel during a controversial village raid in 2009? It’s a key question in this extraordinary trial.
This former soldier says he once loved Ben Roberts-Smith like a brother. Now,during a gruelling week in the witness box,he has backed accusations that the Victoria Cross winner committed a war crime.