In a landmark development that has rocked Australia’s military and legal communities, Australia’s most highly decorated living veteran Ben Roberts-Smith has declined to apply for bail after being formally charged with war-related homicide during a Sydney court hearing Wednesday.
Roberts-Smith, 47, earned Australia’s two highest military honors — the Victoria Cross and Medal of Gallantry — for his combat service in Afghanistan, making his prosecution one of the most high-profile war crime cases in the nation’s modern history. He is only the second Afghanistan veteran from Australia to face war crime charges, following former SAS soldier Oliver Schulz, who has maintained a not guilty plea to a 2012 war crime murder charge, with his trial not expected to begin before 2027.
The charges against Roberts-Smith stem from the alleged unlawful deaths of five Afghan civilians between 2009 and 2012, when he served as an elite corporal in Australia’s Special Air Service (SAS). Australian law defines war crime murder as the intentional killing of non-active combatants — including civilians, prisoners of war, and wounded service members — during armed conflict. Authorities allege Roberts-Smith either personally shot the five victims or directly ordered a subordinate to carry out the killings. He was arrested Tuesday morning at Sydney Airport, charged with five counts initially, and appeared on the court docket Wednesday with two formal charges of war crime murder and three additional counts of aiding and abetting war crime murder; every charge carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment if convicted.
The veteran spent Tuesday night in custody after his arrest, and did not appear for Wednesday’s hearing in either person or via video link. His legal team did not enter a plea on his behalf, nor did they file a request for bail. The case has been adjourned for preliminary proceedings until June 4.
This criminal prosecution follows years of investigations and prior civil legal action. The charges originate from a 2020 independent Australian military report which uncovered conclusive evidence that elite SAS and commando troops unlawfully killed 39 unarmed Afghan people, including prisoners and local farmers, between 2001 and 2021 — the 20-year period when Australia deployed roughly 40,000 military personnel to Afghanistan, with 41 Australian service members killed in the campaign.
In 2018, major Australian newspapers published public allegations of widespread war crimes committed by Roberts-Smith. He responded by filing a civil defamation lawsuit against the publications. In 2023, a federal judge ruled against Roberts-Smith, finding that the core of the allegations — that he unlawfully killed four unarmed Afghan noncombatants in 2009 and 2012 — were proven on the civil standard of a balance of probabilities. Unlike civil court, criminal charges require a higher burden of proof: prosecutors must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to secure a conviction.