Ben Roberts-Smith, Australia’s most decorated living veteran, has lost his defamation case against three newspapers that reported that he had committed war crimes in Afghanistan.
Ben Roberts-Smith, Australia’s most decorated living veteran, has lost his defamation case against three newspapers that reported that he had committed war crimes in Afghanistan. After a year-long, high-profile trial, federal Justice Anthony Besanko determined that the newspapers have proven that the former Special Air Services had committed war crimes including killing unarmed Afghan prisoners, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. Roberts-Smith, now a media executive, sued the Herald along with the Age, and the Canberra Times over stories published in 2018 that accused him of misconduct while serving in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012.
