Ben Roberts-Smith’s lawyers say ex-wife behind leak of SAS drinking game with Taliban prosthetic leg: court
Lawyers for Ben Roberts-Smith have made a big claim in court regarding photos of soldiers drinking from a Taliban’s prosthetic leg in a bar in Afghanistan.
Police & Courts
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Lawyers for Ben Roberts-Smith have claimed in court hundreds of images of soldiers drinking out of a prosthetic leg were leaked to the press by the decorated soldier’s ex-wife.
The high stakes defamation trial of Mr Roberts-Smith will begin next week as he sues Nine newspapers over stories alleging war crimes in Afghanistan.
Nine will argue a truth defence.
The Federal Court, on Wednesday, heard Mr Roberts-Smith’s lawyers were still processing the contents of USB drives which have become a central part of the case.
The USBs, Nine has alleged in court, were buried by Mr Roberts-Smith in a lunch box in his backyard.
They allege the drives contained documents about missions in Afghanistan and confronting images of soldiers drinking from a leg in the SAS Afghanistan bar – the Fat Ladies Arms.
“(Processing) hundreds of images of soldiers drinking from the leg is too onerous and too long,” Mr Roberts-Smith’s Barrister Matthew Richardson told the court.
He said Mr Roberts-Smith’s legal team would process the other material on the drives for the court but couldn’t deal with images of the prosthetic leg before the trial began on Monday.
Nine claimed the leg was taken from a slain Afghan in March 2009 used and as a beer drinking vessel in the SAS bar.
Images emerged of Mr Roberts-Smith posing with a man drinking from the leg.
Mr Roberts-Smith’s lawyers previously told the court he killed the Taliban soldier who used the leg but never drank from the “disgusting” vessel.
Mr Richardson told the court Nine acquired the images from Mr Roberts-Smith’s former wife, Emma Roberts.
Nine’s barrister refuted the claim and said some documents were unable to be handed over from the journalists who worked on the stories because of national security legislation.
The court previously heard Ms Roberts will give evidence on behalf of Nine and is expected to say Mr Roberts-Smith told her to lie on his behalf.
Mr Roberts-Smith’s chief barrister Bruce McClintock previously said he would “put to her that she’s a liar” in cross examination and warned Nine about airing the fractured family’s “dirty linen” in evidence.
The court, on Wednesday, also heard 3400 images were being released to Nine by the Defence department under subpoena.
The contents of those images were not ventilated in court.
Originally published as Ben Roberts-Smith’s lawyers say ex-wife behind leak of SAS drinking game with Taliban prosthetic leg: court