Australia’s war crimes prosecution investigator will be under public and political pressure to “rigorously investigate” and potentially prosecute former soldier Ben Roberts-Smith after a landmark defamation judgment on Thursday found that newspaper reports he was a war criminal and murderer were true, a legal expert says.

Other war crimes experts noted the Office of the Special Investigator (OSI), which was created in 2021 and is the first dedicated war crimes prosecution investigator in Australia, had already shown it could act quickly.