SAS soldier says he only learned cliff kick accusation against Roberts-Smith in Brereton Inquiry

An SAS soldier has told a court he only learned about a key accusation against Ben Roberts-Smith years after the alleged event.

An SAS soldier has told a court the first time he heard an allegation Ben Roberts-Smith kicked an Afghan prisoner off a cliff in 2012 was from a war crime inquiry five years later.

The court has previously heard the same soldier has been accused of a war crime killing that has been slammed as a “blatant lie” cooked up by an Afghan journalist and villagers.

Mr Roberts-Smith is suing Nine newspapers over articles alleging he killed detained prisoners in Afghanistan while deployed with the SAS.

He insists Nine’s articles are wrong, Nine argues they are true.

A soldier, known as Person 32, took the stand on Monday to tell the Federal Court to testify for Mr Roberts-Smith.

Mr Roberts-Smith has called SAS squadmates who have denied, in testimony, that he ordered an execution to a mission in Chenartu in 2012.

Person 32 told the court he was part of a mission, alongside Mr Roberts-Smith, to the Afghan region of Chenartu in late 2012.

A soldier known as Person 14 told the court he kicked a wall and dislodged a weapons cache on the mission.

Mr Roberts-Smith was standing nearby, questioning detained Afghan men with the help of Afghan soldiers known as Wakunish, the court has heard.

It’s alleged Mr Roberts-Smith, upon seeing the weapons, ordered the Wakunish soldiers to execute one of the detained Afghans - and they did.

Person 32 told the court no such thing ever happened.

He has become the latest SAS soldier to deny the allegation after one of Mr Roberts-Smith’s friends, Person 11, told the court he was standing in the room the entire time and no execution took place.

Nine also claims Mr Roberts-Smith had kicked an Afghan farmer off a cliff and the man was then executed in a raid on the village of Darwan in September 2012, one month before Chenartu.

One soldier told the court he witnessed the kick and the execution, claiming Person 11 pulled the trigger and killed the badly injured farmer.

Other soldiers have told the court there was chatter among the SAS about the cliff kick immediately after the raid in September 2012 and it was even allegedly raised with a senior SAS officer up the chain of command.

That senior officer denied anyone raised war crime allegations at that time.

The village of Darwan, raided by the SAS in 2012, has become the setting for multiple accusations against the SAS all of which are denied by the elite Australian soldiers.

Person 32, on Monday, told the court he did not hear the allegation about a person under confinement, or PUC in military slang, being kicked off a cliff until years after the raid on Darwan.

Person 32 said he first heard the allegation while meeting with the Inspector General of the Australian Defence Force, which was investigating war crime allegations, in around 2017.

“When did you become aware of an allegation that Mr Roberts-Smith kicked a PUC off a cliff at Darwan?” Mr Roberts-Smith’s barrister, Arthur Moses SC, asked.

“In the IGADF,” Person 32 responded.

Person 32 told the court he only heard about the IGADF and met with them in 2017 and 2018 meaning, on his evidence, he did not hear the cliff kick allegation until years after Darwan.

The court has heard there are also allegations, published by the ABC, that two more Afghans died during the Darwan mission.

The ABC reported, in mid-2018, that Afghan villagers accused two SAS soldiers of executing two detainees in an almond storage room during the raid.

SAS leadership have denied war crime allegations surfaced in 2013 meetings with subordinates despite claims one distressed soldier made specific allegations against Mr Roberts-Smith.

The court has heard Person 32 is one of those SAS soldiers and the other is Mr Roberts-Smith’s close friend, Person 35.

“That report is a lie,” Person 35 told the court late last month.

“Those two insurgents we engaged in that compound were legally engaged... they were armed.“

Person 35 said the “false allegations” were made against the SAS by an Afghan journalist who had been hired to speak to villagers.

The allegations are not part of Nine’s case but were raised in tense questioning with Person 35 by Nine’s barrister, Nicholas Owens SC.

Late last month Nine aired other allegations of war crimes which are not part of their case but involve both Mr Roberts-Smith and Person 32.

Nine was questioning an SAS patrol commander, known as Person 5, about a 2010 raid on a compound known as Whiskey 591.

Person 5 confirmed there were allegations of three murders at Whiskey 591 in West Dorafshan.

The court heard there is an allegation Mr Roberts-Smith killed a prisoner during that mission - that allegation was never put to the Victoria Cross recipient when he gave evidence.

Mr Roberts-Smith has denied he was involved in “blooding”, a process where junior soldiers are ordered to kill.

The court heard it’s also alleged Mr Roberts-Smith and Person 5 ordered junior soldiers to carry out two more executions so they could be “blooded”.

One of the soldiers allegedly ordered to shoot a prisoner was Person 32, the court heard.

Person 32, in his evidence on Monday, said Mr Roberts-Smith never asked him to violate the lawful rules of engagement.

If he had received such an order from Mr Roberts-Smith, the soldier said, he would have raised it up the chain of command.

Person 32 denied he has been “blooded” by carrying out an unlawful execution.

Person 5, in his evidence, also denied blooding soldiers.

“We don’t blood people. I thought I made that perfectly clear,” he told Nine’s barrister.

The allegations at Whiskey 591 and the almond storage room at Darwan do not appear in Nine‘s court documents outlining their allegations against Mr Roberts-Smith.

No one has been charged for any of the alleged incidents in Nine‘s case or the Brereton Inquiry - which authorities are still investigating.

The trial continues.

Originally published as SAS soldier says he only learned cliff kick accusation against Roberts-Smith in Brereton Inquiry