Infidels, insurgents, spies: Afghan tells Roberts-Smith trial SAS hated like Taliban

A witness in the high-profile Ben Roberts-Smith defamation trial has said he thinks the SAS is ‘cruel like the Taliban’, outlining reasons.

An Afghan who witnessed an allegedly murderous SAS raid on his village hates “infidel” foreigners because they are “cruel” just like the Taliban, a court has heard.

The man, who now lives in fear of Taliban spies, says his village did not harbour an insurgent who betrayed Aussie Diggers in cold blood.

Ben Roberts-Smith’s barrister spent Thursday questioning farmer Man Gul who lives in the village of Darwan, Afghanistan.

Man Gul had told the court he was bound and interrogated by a “big soldier” and a Pashto interpreter from the SAS during a Coalition raid in 2012.

Mr Gul told the court he was detained alongside farmer Ali Jan and Mr Jan’s relative Mohammed Hanifa.

The SAS were searching for a man called Hekmatullah, codenamed JUNGLE EFFECT.

Hekmatullah was a Taliban mole who had enlisted in the Afghan National Army only to betray Australian allies in their own base.

He shot and killed three Diggers as they played cards sparking a manhunt by the SAS that led them to Darwan.

The SAS are ‘infidels’ who ‘martyred’ innocent villagers, an Afghan has told a court. He says he hates them and the Taliban: Department of Defence

Mr Gul told the court his interrogators were asking where the Taliban was - and he said he didn’t know.

The villager told the court the “infidel” SAS soldiers were “cruel to us” just like the Taliban.

“I do not agree with the Taliban,” Mr Gul said on Thursday.

“The Taliban have done injustices to us. The foreigners have also done injustices to us.”

Moments later, Mr Gul said, the SAS took Mr Jan and Mr Hanifa outside the house.

Nine claims Mr Roberts-Smith kicked Mr Jan in the chest and he fell off a cliff and into the dry creek bed below.

Mr Hanifa, this week, told the court he saw “the big soldier” kick his uncle.

Mr Gul told the court he didn’t see what happened to Mr Jan but heard weapons firing from both Coalition helicopters and small-arms fire outside the home.

The bound villager said he called his daughter to cut him free before he spoke to Mr Hanifa.

“I asked Mr Hanifa ‘where is Ali Jan?’ He said ‘they kicked him and he went down to the river and they dragged him toward the trees’,” Mr Gul told the court.

Point “B” marks the approximate spot where Mr Roberts-Smith is accused of kicking Ali Jan off a ‘cliff’ and into a dry creek bed below before the farmer was killed.

The men walked down the steep embankment and into a nearby wooded cornfield where they found Mr Jan with bullets through his head and jaw, Mr Gul told the court.

Both Mr Gul and Mr Hanifa denied Mr Jan was carrying an ICOM radio used by Taliban spotters.

The only man shot and killed by the SAS in that part of Darwan was carrying a radio and the soldiers photographed his corpse with the equipment, Mr Roberts-Smith told the court.

The elite soldier denies the radio was planted on the dead man’s body to justify the killing of an innocent civilian.

Mr Gul said he was not aware Hekmatullah was ever in Darwan and said he had no memory of village elders later scorning locals for harbouring the traitor.

Darwan locals had been told, the court heard, that there was a $500 reward for information about Hekmatullah.

Mr Roberts-Smith, earlier in the raid on Darwan, swam across the Helmand River and shot another Taliban soldier who was hiding in rocks with an AK-47 rifle.

The decorated soldier is suing Nine after they published articles alleging he killed six people, including Mr Jan, outside the lawful rules of war in Afghanistan.

He denies that and claims their articles are defamatory.

Mr Roberts-Smith was part of an SAS manhunt for a traitor named Hekmatullah who killed three Australian soldiers. Picture: Department of Defence

Mr Gul said the Taliban, at that time, did not control his region of Afghanistan but they do now.

Bruce McClintock SC, the barrister for Mr Roberts-Smith, asked Mr Gul how he was living in Afghanistan’s capital - Kabul - for weeks so he could give evidence.

The court has been told food and accommodation for the villagers has been paid for by a doctor working on Nine’s case.

They had been living in a home in Kandahar some months ago, he told the court, but had to leave because people kept knocking on the door.

“We were scared, we didn’t know if Taliban were sending spies about us,” Mr Gul told the court.

There are 14 members of the Gul family staying in Kabul while the villagers give evidence.

Mr Roberts-Smith is Australia’s most decorated living soldier and is suing Nine newspapers for defamation over war crime allegations, which he denies. Picture: Department of Defence

Both Mr Gul and Mr Hanifa have been questioned about whether they are trying to seek compensation or have spoken with human rights investigators who mentioned financial benefits.

Both have said they are receiving no money for their testimony and are not seeking compensation.

The villagers have both expressed fears about fighting on the winding roads back to Darwan, saying they are unsure if they will have to delay their return home.

The Taliban are quickly retaking territory in Afghanistan as the final Coalition troops withdraw from the war torn nation by September 11.

Originally published as Infidels, insurgents, spies: Afghan tells Roberts-Smith trial SAS hated like Taliban