‘Breaks my heart’: Ben Roberts-Smith in tears reliving war during defamation trial

Ben Roberts-Smith has broken down in the stand at his defamation trial reliving one battle in Afghanistan in which he is accused of war crimes.

Ben Roberts-Smith has broken down in tears reliving the life-and-death moment he stormed a Taliban machine gun nest in the battle that saw him recognised with the Victoria Cross.

It came as the SAS veteran denied Nine newspaper’s “heartbreaking” allegations of war crimes and murders by pouring over memories of infamous battles in Afghanistan.

“I spent my life fighting for my country and I did everything I possibly could to ensure I did it with honour,” Mr Roberts-Smith told the Federal Court from the witness box on Thursday.

“When I listened to (those allegations) I really cannot comprehend how people – on the basis of rumour and innuendo – can maintain it in a public forum.

“And it breaks my heart actually … It’s devastating quite frankly.”

Ben Roberts-Smith has told a court he did everything to serve Australia with honour. Picture: AAP

Mr Roberts-Smith spent Thursday sharing vivid memories of battles and former SAS colleagues to refute each allegation of murder and bullying levied against him.

But when he was asked about the battle on the Taliban stronghold of Tizak he was overcome with emotion.

Mr Roberts-Smith described choppering in to what his lawyer said was a historic battle in Afghanistan in a Blackhawk helicopter.

He recalled machine gun fire and RPG’s hitting the aircraft and an Afghan ally taking a bullet through the chest.

“We got hit pretty hard,” he said, describing the landing under heavy enemy fire.

Mr Roberts-Smith said he saw one squadmate pinned down by the Taliban with machine gun rounds kicking dirt up just centimetres from his head.

He and another soldier threw grenades into the machine gun nests and one of the gunners fell silent.

Mr Roberts-Smith was describing the moment before he decided to rush in and deal with the Taliban left on the other guns.

“You have to make a decision …” he said before breaking down in tears.

He did not describe the following moments where he rushed the gunners and shot them dead.

Justice Anthony Besanko adjourned the court as Mr Roberts-Smith put his head in his hands.

Mr Roberts-Smith would ultimately be awarded Australia’s highest military honour for his role in Tizak.

Mr Roberts-Smith leaves Federal court on Thursday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Nikki Short

Nine’s barrister, Nick Owens SC, had earlier outlined the newspaper’s case against the elite soldier.

He reiterated allegations Mr Roberts-Smith had killed six people who posed no threat while on his tours in Afghanistan with the SAS, had bullied other soldiers and assaulted a partner.

“None, not a single one of the six murders Mr Roberts-Smith either allegedly committed or was involved in were made in the heat of battle or in what is referred to as the fog of war,” the barrister said.

“In each of the six murders we allege, the person was a PUC (person under confinement) placed safely and securely under the custody of the Australian Army.”

Mr Roberts-Smith was taken through other battles where he was said to have committed murders or bullied other soldiers.

WHISKEY 108 AND THE PEG LEG TALIBAN

Mr Roberts-Smith, Nine alleged, machine gunned and detained a Taliban fighter with a prosthetic leg at a large firefight in Karakak in 2009.

The assault on a compound there, codenamed Whiskey 108, saw Australian infantry and SAS do battle with a high number of Taliban and claimed the life of Corporal Matthew Hopkins.

Mr Roberts-Smith, on Thursday, described a 500-pound bomb blowing the centre out of Whiskey 108 before Australian troops rushed in.

In the firefight, he said, he spotted an insurgent with a bolt action rifle.

Mr Roberts-Smith said he fired two shots and killed the man before his machine gun jammed.

Nine alleged Mr Roberts-Smith had murdered the man by pushing him to the ground and shooting him 10-15 times with a machine gun.

Mr Roberts-Smith called it “ridiculous” and said the trauma to a human body from that type of shooting would be far beyond what is visible in the photographs before the court.

The prosthetic leg, Mr Roberts-Smith said, was taken back to the SAS bar the Fat Ladies Arms by a soldier called Person 6 despite Mr Roberts-Smith’s protests.

Mr Roberts-Smith told the court he never drank from “das boot” which SAS soldiers drank beer from in confronting pictures published by Nine.

He said it was hard to explain why people drank from the “mascot” but it was not something he had an opinion on either way.

“You expect you may get killed at any point you go outside the wire,” Mr Roberts-Smith said.

“Maybe the guys want down time and use the leg as some type of gallows humour or maybe to desensitise themselves to the horrors of seeing dead bodies every day … It’s about people being able to let go of some of the demons that they deal with.”

FIREFIGHT IN CHORA

Nine alleged Mr Roberts-Smith bullied a fellow SAS soldier while they had climbed a steep mountain in the Chora Valley on a reconnaissance mission ahead of a major US offensive.

The impenetrable Chora Valley was in front of them and they watched Taliban insurgents fire RPG’s and artillery at their Coalition comrades on the valley floor.

All the SAS patrol could do was watch and call in air strikes.

Later, Mr Roberts-Smith told the court, the patrol saw a man wearing military “webbing” working his way up the mountain.

The patrol commander told Mr Roberts-Smith and Sergeant Matthew Locke to “go after the spotter”, and they shot him on the mountainside.

Mr Roberts-Smith said he saw something – which reminded him of munitions smoke – burning out from the spotter’s chest.

He denied an allegation by Nine he had confronted another soldier, Person 1, about not going after the spotter himself.

Hours later the patrol heard voices coming up behind their hidden observation post and then machine guns began firing, Mr Roberts-Smith said.

Sgt Locke bravely climbed a nearly sheer cliff face to stop a Taliban fighter from outflanking them while Mr Roberts-Smith moved to look down the valley, he said.

Taliban rounds cracked past as they broke the sound barrier and kicked up dirt around him, he said.

Person 1, Mr Roberts-Smith told the court, had forgotten the basic lesson of bringing machine gun oil and his gun would not fire.

Mr Roberts-Smith said he saw 16 insurgents, in military formation, moving toward them from a kilometre away through the scope of his sniper rifle.

Another SAS soldier, Person 2, moved in to support him but his own sniper rifle wouldn’t fire, he said.

They were facing overrun from the Taliban when a Coalition aircraft, an A10 which has a giant Gatling gun in its nose, began firing explosive rounds at the insurgents, the court heard.

It “broke the backs” of the Taliban and they retreated.

Mr Roberts-Smith said he heard Person 1, while asleep that night on the mountain, screaming “I’m a friendly!” repeatedly.

Mr Roberts-Smith said Person 1 was pointing a machine gun at him while clearly having a night terror.

The patrol commander “bravely” stepped between them, Mr Roberts-Smith said.

“It could have been catastrophic engagement of our own forces between each other,” he said.

Mr Roberts-Smith says it ‘breaks my heart’ to hear war crime allegations against him. Picture: Department of Defence

NINE SAYS 21 SAS TO TESTIFY AGAINST ROBERTS-SMITH

Mr Owens told the court, in his opening, that Mr Roberts-Smith had “fabricated” alternative versions of events to explain away the alleged unlawful killings.

He said 21 current and former SAS operators would give evidence against Mr Roberts-Smith and there would need to be convincing evidence to suggest they were part of a “conspiracy” against him.

He denounced an assertion from the elite soldier’s legal team the soldiers were motivated by “jealousy” over Mr Roberts-Smith’s commendations.

“Some witnesses were involved in crimes themselves,” he said.

“Is it really to be supposed … that a man would himself confess to murder just to give vent to some jealousy over a medal.”

“Others are honourable men who could remain silent no longer.”

Mr Owens said it didn’t matter if the men Mr Roberts-Smith are accused of killing were Taliban.

What mattered was whether or not they were PUCs when they were allegedly shot.

“(A prisoner) may be the most brutal vile member of the Taliban imaginable, an Australian soldier cannot kill him and to do so is murder.”

He read text messages between Mr Roberts-Smith and a woman he was allegedly having an “affair” with after she was injured in Canberra.

Nine claims Mr Roberts-Smith punched her in the face at their hotel, while the soldier’s legal team says they have CCTV of her being so drunk she fell down the stairs.

In the texts the woman tells Mr Roberts-Smith she told her husband she fell down the stairs and Mr Roberts-Smith asks if her husband believes the soldier assaulted her.

“Yeah he did to begin with and didn’t believe I’d fallen down stairs, I just told him what we talked about,” Mr Owens said reading from the texts.

“Hopefully he believes you,” Mr Roberts-Smith allegedly wrote back.

Originally published as ‘Breaks my heart’: Ben Roberts-Smith in tears reliving war during defamation trial