Friday, April 24, 2026

Australian VC recipient arrested over alleged war crimes

Ben Roberts-Smith arrested
Ben Roberts-Smith. Image – @DrewPavlou, X.

One of Australia’s most decorated soldiers, Ben Roberts-Smith, has been arrested over allegations of war crimes, with the 47-year-old Victoria Cross recipient taken into custody at Sydney Airport on Tuesday morning.

The former special forces soldier’s arrest follows a defamation trial against Nine Newspapers which found, on the balance of probabilities, that allegations he was responsible for, or complicit in, the deaths of four detainees in Afghanistan were substantially true, a decision later upheld on appeal.



The Australian Federal Police said he is expected to be charged with five counts of war crime – murder, alleging victims were shot by the accused or by subordinate members of the ADF acting on his orders, with incidents said to have occurred in Kakarak in 2009 and in Darwan and Syahchow in 2012, offences that carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment, with Roberts-Smith, who has maintained his innocence and described the allegations as “egregious” and “spiteful,” scheduled to face a NSW court later today.

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14 COMMENTS

  1. Surely the real war crime was carried out by the Australian government in 2001 when they got hopelessly sucked into George Bush’s ‘war on terror’ . Quite why any sane politician would not question the rationale of sending troops to invade Afghanistan as a reaction to Mossad blowing up three World Trade Centre buildings on 9/11 is beyond me.

  2. This phony scumbag roided PUNK was outed as a lying murdering sack-of-excrement years ago…
    F*cker laughed while executing unarmed civilians… The snake was of-course “decorated” by greasy eye-darting warpig “officials” and slithered-off scot-free from PROVEN charges because of slimeball lawyers…

  3. Whats left out is there is no evidence or csi at all..Don’t see how this case won’t fall apart since witnesses can’t be called or any material put forward as there is none..

    • Right so police are arresting people without evidence for no less than alleged war crimes and cases for defamation thrown out without evidence too….? Maybe you need to get informed matey……?

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