Ben Roberts-Smith, once celebrated as Australia’s most decorated living soldier, has been arrested in connection with multiple killings carried out during his service in Afghanistan. The former Special Air Service (SAS) corporal is expected to face five counts of war crime-murder, marking the beginning of a criminal process that comes nearly 17 years after the first alleged incident.
The arrest follows years of public scrutiny and a high-profile civil defamation trial, where a judge found that several of the allegations against Roberts-Smith were substantially true. Prosecutors are now expected to argue that the victims—who included a farmer, a disabled man, and a teenager—were unarmed, under the control of Australian troops, and posed no threat at the time of their deaths.
The case surrounding the Ben Roberts-Smith alleged war crimes transcends individual acts of violence, pointing toward a broader, systemic culture of brutality within certain special forces rotations. Evidence presented in previous proceedings described a disturbing environment involving “kill boards,” trophy hunting, and the ritualistic “blooding” of new recruits, where junior soldiers were allegedly ordered to execute prisoners to prove their loyalty to the squadron.
This shift from national hero to accused war criminal represents one of the most significant legal and moral challenges in the history of the Australian Defence Force, raising profound questions about command responsibility and the oversight of elite units in conflict zones.
The ritual of ‘blooding’ and the Whiskey 108 killings
Central to the allegations is the concept of “blooding”—a predatory initiation rite where recruits were allegedly forced to kill to be fully accepted into the SAS. This practice is believed to be at the heart of the events at a compound known as Whiskey 108 during the battle of Kakarak on Easter Sunday in 2009.
According to testimony accepted by a judge in a prior civil trial, Roberts-Smith and his commander had pressured a rookie soldier to kill someone to become part of the squadron. When two unarmed Afghan men were discovered hiding in a tunnel, the “opportunity” emerged. One man was elderly. the other had a knee-high prosthetic leg. Both were “Persons Under Control” (PUCs), meaning they were captured and protected under the laws of war.
Witnesses testified that Roberts-Smith forced the elderly man to his knees and ordered the rookie to shoot him. Roberts-Smith then allegedly carried the man with the prosthetic leg outside the compound and shot him in the back with a Minimi machine gun. Following the killings, the men were described in official reports as “squirters”—insurgents attempting to flee—to justify the deaths as legal combat engagements.
The brutality extended beyond the killing. A soldier allegedly took the prosthetic leg back to the Tarin Kowt base, where it was used as a novelty beer vessel known as “Das Boot” in an illegal drinking hole called the “Fat Lady’s Arms.” Photographs later emerged showing Roberts-Smith grinning near the object, an act he later characterized as “gallows humour.”
The ‘cliff kick’ at Darwan
One of the most harrowing accounts involves the village of Darwan on September 11, 2012. During a mission to locate an Afghan soldier who had killed Australian mentors, Roberts-Smith’s unit detained several local farmers. Among them was Ali Jan, who had been in the village to buy flour for his family.
Witnesses alleged that after Ali Jan smiled during questioning, Roberts-Smith—who stands over two metres tall—manhandled the bound farmer to the edge of a steep slope and front-kicked him backward down the cliff. Roberts-Smith then allegedly ordered soldiers to drag the injured man to a cornfield, where he ordered one of the soldiers to shoot Jan dead.
Federal Court Justice Anthony Besanko previously described the testimony regarding this incident as a “strong, consistent and coherent body of evidence.” Roberts-Smith denied the claims, asserting that Jan was a “spotter” for the enemy, a version of events the judge found inherently unbelievable.
Cover-ups and the ‘Person 12’ lie
A recurring theme in the evidence is the alleged effort to conceal these killings through falsified reports. In the village of Chinartu, Roberts-Smith allegedly ordered an Afghan army commander to shoot a compliant detainee. Following the execution, official reports were backdated to suggest the man had been killed in action.
During the civil trial, Roberts-Smith and several witnesses claimed the Afghan commander, referred to as “Person 12,” could not have been present since he was under suspension for shooting a dog. However, Department of Defence records proved the commander had never been suspended and was indeed in Chinartu on the day of the shooting. Justice Besanko concluded that Roberts-Smith and his associates had colluded to create a “deliberate, material” lie out of a consciousness of guilt.
Similarly, in the village of Syahchow, investigators allege that Roberts-Smith used “throw-downs”—planting rifles, magazines, and chest rigs on the bodies of unarmed prisoners—to build them appear as Taliban insurgents in official photographs. Former SAS captain and current MP Andrew Hastie testified that Roberts-Smith remarked, “Just a couple more dead c—s,” after the mission, before later claiming the men had been killed while firing or reaching for grenades.
Other allegations involve the village of Fasil, where a terrified teenager was reportedly shot in the head. A medic testified that Roberts-Smith later boasted, “I shot that c— in the head… Blew his brains out. And it was the most elegant thing I’ve ever seen.” While the judge accepted that Roberts-Smith expressed joy at the killing, the murder itself was not proven to the civil standard due to a lack of direct eyewitnesses.
| Incident Location | Primary Allegation | Civil Court Finding |
|---|---|---|
| Whiskey 108 | Execution of elderly man and disabled man | Proven (Civil Standard) |
| Darwan | Kicking farmer off cliff; ordered execution | Proven (Civil Standard) |
| Chinartu | Ordered execution of compliant detainee | Proven (Civil Standard) |
| Syahchow | Blooding of recruit; use of ‘throw-downs’ | Not Proven (Lack of evidence) |
| Fasil | Execution of terrified teenager | Not Proven (Lack of evidence) |
What this means for the criminal trial
The transition from a civil defamation case to a criminal prosecution is a significant escalation. While the civil trial required only a “balance of probabilities” to find the allegations true, a criminal court requires proof “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The prosecution’s challenge will be to secure testimony from former SAS members, some of whom have previously declined to testify to avoid self-incrimination. However, the existence of official records contradicting the “Person 12” story and the consistency of Afghan witness testimony provide a foundation for the case.
For the Australian public, the case is a reckoning with the “warrior” myth. In 2018, Army Chief Angus Campbell banned the display of Spartan paraphernalia and other “symbols of death” within the ranks, a move that reflected a broader effort to purge the arrogant culture that allegedly enabled these crimes.
The next confirmed legal checkpoint will be the formal reading of charges and the initial bail hearings for Roberts-Smith. Further updates will depend on the filing of the prosecution’s full brief of evidence.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.
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