Ben Roberts-Smith comrade denies saying rookie should be ‘blooded’
Ben Roberts-Smith has called the first witness in his defamation trial, with the SAS soldier denying ordering a “blooding”.
An SAS patrol commander deployed to Afghanistan alongside Ben Roberts-Smith has denied saying a rookie soldier should be “blooded” by making a first kill.
Mr Roberts-Smith is suing Nine newspapers for defamation after being accused in a series of articles of killing unarmed Afghans while deployed with the SAS.
He denies the allegations.
Nine is mounting a truth defence and says it can back up the stories in court.
The patrol commander, known as Person 5, took the stand on Tuesday as the first witness to be called by Mr Roberts-Smith, following weeks of testimony from Nine witnesses.
Person 5 described Mr Roberts-Smith as an “easy choice” for a second-in-command when preparing to deploy to Afghanistan in 2009.
He responded “never” when asked by the Victoria Cross recipient’s barrister if he ever said that the team was going to ”blood the rookie”.
He explained he understood the term to mean “when a new member or young member gets his first kill in battle”.
“Blooding has been used for centuries by armies,” Person 5 said.
He also denied ever killing a person in confinement or ordering a person under his command to do so.
The “blooding” allegation relates to a 2009 mission when several SAS teams, including one led by Person 5, cleared a compound known as Whiskey 108 near the community of Kakarak.
Nine has claimed that Person 5 said the patrol needed to “blood the rookie”, referring to a soldier known as Person 4.
The newspapers also claimed a detained Afghan man was fatally shot by Person 4 during the Whiskey 108 mission, allegedly in the presence of Mr Robert-Smith.
Person 4 has previously declined to testify about those allegations on the grounds of self-incrimination.
Mr Roberts-Smith denies any execution took place.
Person 5 described the Whiskey 108 mission in detail, including a colleague's descent into a tunnel that was declared “clear”.
Later, during a meeting with other team leaders, he said he heard gunshots, ran back to the compound and found Mr Roberts-Smith, who told him he and Person 4 had engaged “two squirters”.
One of the dead men had a prosthetic leg, which Person 5 inspected because he thought the dead man might have hid explosives in it.
He said he found nothing suspicious.
Next time he saw the leg was in an unofficial bar used by soldiers named the Fat Ladies Arms.
“It had been cleaned out with an antibacterial thing ... and they were drinking out of it,” Person 5 said.
Asked if he drank from it as well, Person 5 said yes, and explained he did it because it was “a cultural thing”.
Nine’s barrister complained repeatedly that some of the day’s evidence, such as the location of people at various times and the sequence of events, hadn’t been put to earlier witnesses.
Nicholas Owens SC said it would be “fundamentally unfair” to allow the evidence without allowing those witnesses to respond, and asked it be rejected by the court.
Mr Roberts-Smith’s barrister Arthur Moses SC disagreed, saying it would “obliterate the evidence as if it never happened” and risk leading the judge “into error”.
Justice Anthony Besanko said he would consider Nine’s submission and allowed the witness to continue.
The hearing resumes on Wednesday.