Less than 48 hours after Australia’s most decorated living former soldier Ben Roberts-Smith was taken into federal police custody at Sydney Airport, a pro-Roberts-Smith petition has already gathered more than 10,000 signatures, laying bare the sharp, growing national rift over how Australia should handle his alleged war crimes.
Footage captured the dramatic arrest: Roberts-Smith, a Victoria Cross recipient, was escorted off a Qantas domestic flight by Australian Federal Police (AFP) officers as he traveled from Brisbane to Sydney with his partner and two teenage daughters. He faces five criminal murder charges linked to the alleged unlawful killings of Afghan civilians during his military deployment between 2009 and 2012. Currently held on remand, Roberts-Smith will remain in custody at least until April 17, when he is scheduled to file an application for bail.
The arrest comes eight months after Roberts-Smith lost a landmark civil defamation trial against Nine Entertainment’s Australian newspapers. In that 2023 ruling, Justice Anthony Besanko found that on the civil standard of the balance of probabilities, reporting that alleged Roberts-Smith participated in the murder of four unarmed Afghan men was substantially true. That civil verdict cleared the way for criminal investigators to bring formal charges, marking the first high-profile criminal prosecution stemming from Australia’s long-running inquiry into special forces war crimes in Afghanistan.
The petition calling for Roberts-Smith’s release was launched by Australian political activist Drew Pavlou, who has emerged as a leading voice for the ex-soldier’s supporters. The campaign has already drawn high-profile backing from powerful Australian figures: billionaire mining magnate Gina Rinehart and One Nation party leader Pauline Hanson have publicly defended Roberts-Smith. Stuart Bonds, a One Nation electoral candidate for the New South Wales seat of Hunter, reaffirmed his leader’s position, noting Hanson has built personal ties with Roberts-Smith and his family. Bonds added that the prosecution sends confusing, conflicting messages to currently serving Australian military personnel. The movement even gained international attention when tech billionaire Elon Musk commented publicly that the prosecution of Roberts-Smith “sounds insane”.
But supporters of the prosecution frame the arrest as a long-overdue landmark step for institutional and military accountability. Leaders of human rights and justice organizations say the charges mark a critical moment for victims and affected Afghan communities who have waited years for justice. “The proper investigation and prosecution of alleged war crimes by members of the Australian special forces in Afghanistan are essential to ensuring justice,” said the executive director of the Australian Centre for International Justice. Public attention to the allegations has remained high for years, ever since the high-profile collapse of Roberts-Smith’s defamation suit put the claims of war crimes back into national headlines. Now, the shift from civil findings to criminal prosecution has reignited a fierce national debate that shows no sign of easing, splitting public opinion across the country.