One of Australia’s most-decorated soldiers was arrested Tuesday for allegedly murdering unarmed prisoners while serving in Afghanistan, police and local media said following a sweeping war crimes probe.
The Australian Federal Police said they arrested a 47-year-old former Australian soldier, who was widely named in local media as Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith.
Federal police commissioner Krissy Barrett said the soldier had been linked to a string of murders while serving in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012.
“The victims were not taking part in hostilities at the time of their alleged murder in Afghanistan,” she told reporters.
“It will be alleged the victims were shot by the accused, or shot by subordinate members acting on the orders of the accused.”
He would be charged with five counts of “war crime — murder”, she said.
A former member of the Special Air Service Regiment, Roberts-Smith was once lauded as Australia’s most distinguished living war hero.
But his reputation took a major hit in 2018, when a series of newspaper reports first linked him to the murder of unarmed Afghan prisoners by Australian troops.
Those reports would eventually trigger an ongoing police investigation into alleged war crimes carried out by Australian soldiers.
Roberts-Smith has maintained his innocence throughout, launching a multi-million-dollar legal suit against the newspapers that first reported on the allegations.
– War crime allegations –
Roberts-Smith won the Victoria Cross — Australia’s highest military honour — for “conspicuous gallantry” in Afghanistan while on the hunt for a senior Taliban commander.
He met Queen Elizabeth II and his image was hung in the hallowed halls of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
But after painstaking reporting, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald alleged his public persona masked a pattern of criminal and immoral behaviour.
The papers alleged Roberts-Smith had kicked an unarmed Afghan civilian off a cliff and ordered subordinates to shoot him.
He was also said to have taken part in the machine-gunning of a man with a prosthetic leg, later using the limb as a drinking vessel with comrades.
Australia deployed 39,000 troops to Afghanistan over two decades as part of US and NATO-led operations against the Taliban and other militant groups.
As Australian veterans returned home, their actions have come into sharp legal focus.
A 2020 military investigation found special forces personnel “unlawfully killed” 39 Afghan civilians and prisoners, revealing allegations of summary executions, body count competitions and torture by Australian forces.
Under growing pressure, the government appointed a special investigator to probe whether current and former soldiers should face criminal charges.
