Australia’s Most Decorated Soldier Faces Multiple Charges of the War Crime of Murder

Australia’s most decorated war hero Ben Roberts-Smith was arrested by Australian federal police on Gadigal land, as he arrived by plane at Sydney’s domestic airport on Tuesday, 3 April 2026.

The 47-year-old former Special Air Service Regiment (SAS) officer was then taken to Mascot police station, where he was charged with five counts of the war crime of murder.

Roberts is charged over the alleged murders of five unarmed Afghan civilians or prisoners over April 2009 through to October 2012. The slain were either allegedly shot and killed by Roberts-Smith or the then corporal ordered a subordinate to murder the unarmed Afghan individuals.

Roberts-Smith served six tours of duty in Afghanistan commencing in 2006, and on leaving the military in 2013, he’d been awarded a Medal for Gallantry and the Victoria Cross of Australia, along with a Commendation for Distinguished Services.

The image of Roberts-Smith, one of the nation’s greatest war heroes, was shattered in 2018, when Nine papers published a series of articles about him, alleging that he’d committed multiple murders and other serious criminal offences whilst in Afghanistan.

The former soldier then sued the papers and journalists involved only to have this backfire, as the judge found that the evidence revealed Roberts-Smith had likely murdered four unarmed Afghan civilians or prisoners-of-war.

As the defamation suit that Robert-Smith brought against the newspapers was a civil case, when Federal Court Justice Anthony Besanko said he was satisfied the evidence had led to four murders having been proven, this was only to the civil standard, or the balance of probabilities, which means that the crimes being attributed to the soldier were more than likely true.

But when Roberts-Smith, who is currently being remanded in Silverwater Correctional Centre, stands trial over the five murders, the prosecution will have to prove this to beyond a reasonable doubt, or to the point where there is no hesitation in finding the defendant guilty, and if that occurs, the decorated Australian war hero will likely spend a very long time in gaol.

A joint investigation

“The former soldier was arrested at Sydney’s domestic airport this morning,” AFP commissioner Krissy Barrett told the press following the arrest. “It will be alleged the victims were not taking part in hostilities at the time of their alleged murder in Afghanistan. It will be alleged that the victims were detained unarmed and were under the control of ADF members when they were killed.”

“It will be alleged the victims were shot by the accused or shot by subordinate members of the ADF in the presence of and acting on the orders of the accused,” the top cop added.

Barrett further set out that this is the second time that a joint investigation of the AFP and the Office of the Special Investigator (OSI) has resulted in the arrest and charging of an ex-ADF officer with the war crime of murder. The first saw former SAS officer Oliver Schulz arrested in March 2023 and charged over killing an Afghan civilian. Schulz has pleaded not guilty and will stand trial next year.

The allegations against Roberts-Smith are part of a much broader investigation into Australian perpetrated war crimes in Afghanistan. The four-year-long Brereton inquiry resulted in a report being released in late 2020 that found evidence of 39 unlawful killings of civilians or prisoners. And the OSI was established in January 2021, for the purpose of investigating these matters.

“Unlike a conventional investigation that’s conducted in Australia,” OSI director Ross Barnett said in relation to a question about why these investigations take so long, “the OSI has been tasked with investigating dozens of murders alleged to have been committed in the middle of a war zone in a country 9,000 kilometres from Australia, that we can no longer access.”

The war crime of murder

Roberts-Smith has been charged with five counts of the war crime of murder under section 268.70 of the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth). This involves a soldier killing someone who is “not taking an active part in the hostilities”, and the perpetrator is either aware of that or they’re reckless to the fact. The maximum penalty for this offence is life imprisonment.

Justice Besanko found a long list of allegations against Roberts-Smith had been substantiated to the civil standard, during the defamation trial. This included kicking an unarmed and handcuffed man off a cliff and then ordering a subordinate to shoot him. The ex-corporal is said to have pressured an inexperienced SAS officer to shoot an unarmed elderly man to “blood the rookie”.

Roberts-Smith is said to have machine gunned a man with a prosthetic leg, and he then took this fake appendage back to Australia and used it as a novelty beer-drinking vessel. Further, when he was an SAS patrol deputy commander, Ben authorised the killing of an unarmed junior Afghan officer. And in 2010, he’s said to have bashed an Afghan man to the point that commanders intervened.

In 2012, this time as patrol commander, Roberts-Smith allegedly authorised the assault of an unarmed Afghan man posing no threat, he engaged in a campaign of bullying a quiet Australian soldier, and then he further assaulted another unarmed Afghan man that same year.

Justice Besanko further ruled that Roberts-Smith broke the moral and legal rules of military engagement and is therefore, a criminal.

The joint AFP and OSI investigation against Roberts-Smith commenced in 2021. Investigators have laid five counts of the war crime of murder against his name, which will need to be proven to the criminal standard of beyond a reasonable doubt if they’re to stick. And his indictment includes an alleged murder that had not been proven to the balance of probabilities during his initial trial.

Mixed reactions

The arrest of Roberts-Smith at Sydney’s domestic airport has sent shockwaves across the nation. A sizable number of constituents have been surprised that the allegations against the nation’s greatest war hero weren’t simply swept under the carpet, whilst an equally sizable portion can’t believe that a soldier who served his country in a foreign theatre of war, is now going to be punished for it.

Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart has stated that she doesn’t understand why the government would be spending $300 million to bring down a number of SAS soldiers, who undertook great hardship to serve their country, only to have the government now break that contract. Former PM Tony Abbott and tech billionaire Elon Musk have both expressed similar misgivings about the move.

Whereas Australian Greens Senator David Shoebridge has asserted that this “moment of accountability” highlights the terrible cost of war. He further asserts that since the handing down of the Brereton report in late 2020, there has been a gaping hole in terms of accountability for war crimes that the official four-year-long investigation had uncovered.

“Gold braid on your shoulder is not meant to be legal protection from complicity in war crimes. If justice is to be fully delivered there must be further and closer attention paid to the role of senior officers who directed and oversaw Australia’s deployment in Afghanistan,” outlined the senator, and he added that the long delays in prosecuting these matters translates as justice denied.