By Perry Duffin and Cloe Read
Disgraced SAS soldier Ben Roberts-Smith and Zachary Rolfe, a Northern Territory police officer who shot dead an Indigenous teenager, have been photographed relaxing in a Bali pool – an account appearing to bear Rolfe’s name joking about the downtime of “cops/murderers and war criminals”.
The men at the centre of two major national scandals have been fast friends for years, since “connecting” over their military careers.
An Instagram post appeared to show Zachary Rolfe (left) and Ben Roberts-Smith at a Bali beach club.Credit: Instagram/Guardian Australia
This week a screenshot emerged that showed a Queensland police officer pictured in a post on Instagram with Roberts-Smith and Rolfe smiling poolside at Finn’s Beach Club in Bali, Indonesia.
“Hanging out with the boyz,” the Queensland officer, who served alongside Rolfe in the NT, wrote.
An account named “zaccourtier” replied: “Just a couple cops/murderers and war criminals Havin a lovely afternoon in the sun” with a love heart.
The Guardian, which first published the now private image, said the “zaccourtier” account used the display name “Zac R”. Courtier is the maiden name of Rolfe’s mother.
The Queensland Police Service said it was aware of the matter and was conducting further inquiries.
“We are awaiting advice from the Ethical Standards Command as to how they will proceed with this information,” the QPS said in a statement.
In recent years, Queensland police flagged changes to their social media policy, after investigations into online posts made by officers.
Rolfe, 31, was found not guilty of murdering Kumanjayi Walker, 19, in a high-profile trial that ended in early 2022. Rolfe shot Walker three times in a community near Alice Springs in November 2019 in a police operation.
Rolfe leaving court flanked by NT Police Association president Paul McCue (right) and Police Federation of Australia president Ian Leavers (second from left).Credit: Zach Hope
Roberts-Smith, in June this year, lost a landmark Federal Court case against this masthead which proved to the civil standard – on the balance of probabilities – that the SAS veteran was a war criminal complicit in the murder of four unarmed prisoners in Afghanistan.
The man who posted the image was listed as a retiring or resigning NT police officer in a 2022 edition of the NT Police Association’s newsletter. He is not accused of any wrongdoing.
That same edition of the newsletter pictured Rolfe and the union’s president, Paul McCue, on the front cover outside court. Inside the newsletter McCue called Rolfe’s prosecution “treacherous”.
“Emotion, opinion, and bias aside, Constable Rolfe was rightfully acquitted by unanimous verdict on Friday 11 March 2022, more than 850 days since the critical incident in Yuendumu on 9 November 2019,” McCue wrote.
“The verdict was one which not only NT Police Officers were anxiously waiting on, but police across the entire nation.”
Rolfe was fired from the NT Police earlier this year for “serious breaches of discipline during [his] policing career” after an inquest into Walker’s death revealed he sent racist messages.
Rolfe had taken to a now-removed “I support Zach Rolfe” Facebook page to call those messages “playground” language.
“I have used rude and racist terms regarding nearly every race, most often my own,” he wrote.
The inquest has been repeatedly disrupted as Rolfe sought to escape giving evidence – but in June the NT Court of Appeal ruled Rolfe can be compelled to give evidence by the coroner.
Rolfe’s parents Richard and Debbie arrive at the NT Supreme Court in Darwin in February 2022.Credit: AAP
Deborah Rolfe AM, Zachary’s mother, was one of a number of people who gave statements supporting Roberts-Smith in his defamation case.
She said she and her son had met Roberts-Smith in March 2011 in Canberra and they “connected straight away in part because Zach had recently joined the Australian Army”.
“Ben has been very kind and helpful towards Zach, with Ben having acted as a mentor to him,” Mrs Rolfe wrote in June 2021.
Roberts-Smith is appealing against the Federal Court decision in his own case. The appeal is expected to be heard in February over 10 days. Rolfe’s lawyer was contacted for comment.
With AAP
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