Australia's Most Decorated Soldier Ben Roberts-Smith Arrested for Alleged War Crimes

Ben Roberts-Smith, Australia's most decorated living soldier and recipient of the Victoria Cross, was arrested at Sydney Airport on Tuesday morning, April 7, 2026, and charged with five counts of the war crime of murder in connection with killings in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012. Australian Federal Police identified the accused as a 47-year-old former member of the Australian Defence Force, while local media named him as Roberts-Smith. Police said he was apprehended after arriving on a flight from Brisbane. The charges carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment for each count. Roberts-Smith has consistently denied allegations of wrongdoing throughout years of public scrutiny and legal proceedings.

Victims were unarmed and under ADF control, police allege Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett told a press conference that the alleged victims were not combatants at the time of their deaths. „It will be alleged the victims were detained, unarmed and were under the control of ADF members when they were killed.” — Krissy Barrett via Deutsche Welle Barrett added that the victims were allegedly shot either by the accused directly or by subordinate soldiers acting on his orders. The allegations include that Roberts-Smith shot dead an unarmed Afghan teenager and kicked a handcuffed detainee off a cliff before ordering him to be shot. He is also accused of aiding or directing others to intentionally kill people on three separate occasions. According to La Libre.be, the alleged murders took place in April 2009 and in September and October 2012 in the Afghan province of Uruzgan. Barrett emphasized that the alleged conduct was confined to a very small number of personnel and was not reflective of the broader Australian military. „The overwhelming majority of our ADF do our country proud. Today's charges are not reflective of the majority of members who serve under our Australian flag with honor, with distinction and with the values of a democratic nation.” — Krissy Barrett via The Independent

Defamation trial loss and dismissed appeal preceded the arrest Roberts-Smith's path to criminal charges followed a prolonged legal battle that began after Australian newspapers first published allegations of misconduct in 2018. He launched what became Australia's most expensive defamation trial against the newspapers, but a Federal Court judge ruled in 2023 that the publications had proved four of the six murder allegations they had made. His final appeal was dismissed by the High Court in September 2025, exhausting his civil legal options. The criminal investigation was conducted jointly by the Office of the Special Investigator and the Australian Federal Police, with the probe opened in 2021. Ross Barnett, director of investigations at the Office of the Special Investigator, acknowledged the complexity of the case, noting that investigators lacked access to crime scenes and physical evidence such as photographs, site plans, secured bullets, or bloodstain analysis. „If the evidence leads to other people needing to be charged, you can be assured that will happen.” — Ross Barnett via rmf24.pl Roberts-Smith was transported directly from the airport to appear before a local court in New South Wales later on Tuesday.

A 2020 report by investigating judge Paul Brereton found credible evidence that members of Australia's elite Special Air Service Regiment unlawfully killed at least 39 unarmed Afghan prisoners and civilians between 2005 and 2016, with combat situations allegedly staged afterward to conceal violations of international laws of war. The report triggered the establishment of the Office of the Special Investigator and a joint criminal investigation with the Australian Federal Police. Approximately 39,000 to 40,000 Australian military personnel served in Afghanistan over two decades as part of US- and NATO-led operations, of whom 41 were killed in action. Roberts-Smith received the Victoria Cross for conspicuous gallantry during a 2010 battle against Taliban fighters in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and completed six tours of duty between 2006 and 2012.

Second Australian veteran charged, 53 war crime probes ongoing Roberts-Smith is the second Australian veteran of the Afghanistan campaign to face a war crimes charge, following former Special Air Service Regiment soldier Oliver Schulz, who has pleaded not guilty to the war crime murder of an Afghan man named Dad Mohammad, allegedly shot three times in the head in a wheatfield in Uruzgan province in May 2012. The Office of the Special Investigator and the Australian Federal Police are currently conducting 53 investigations into alleged war crimes committed by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan, of which 39 have concluded without charges, leaving around 10 ongoing. Barnett stated that the investigation into Roberts-Smith was complicated and time-consuming precisely because of the absence of physical forensic evidence from the scene. The NRC reported that during earlier defamation hearings, former soldiers testified about a practice known as "blooding," in which junior soldiers were allegedly ordered by superiors to shoot prisoners as an initiation ritual. Roberts-Smith's lawyer for the defamation trial did not immediately respond to a request for comment following the arrest.

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5 (counts of war crime murder) — charges Roberts-Smith faces, each carrying life imprisonment