Roberts-Smith witness contradicts key allegation from Nine
A key witness for Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith has contradicted a crucial allegation published by Nine newspapers.
Ben Roberts-Smith is accused of killing two unarmed Afghans who were pulled from a tunnel beneath a Taliban compound – but now the soldier who was sent into the dark crevice has told a court there was no one hiding inside.
Mr Roberts-Smith is suing Nine newspapers after a series of articles claimed he and his fellow SAS soldiers carried out illegal killings of detained Afghans in circumstances amounting to war crimes.
Nine insists the articles are true and Mr Roberts-Smith, this month, began calling former squadmates to testify against the newspapers in the Federal Court defamation lawsuit.
This week the evidence has focused on a raid on a Taliban compound in 2009 and the deaths of two Afghans during the mission.
Nine claims two Afghan men were pulled from a tunnel beneath the besieged base as the SAS moved room to room.
The newspapers further claims Mr Roberts-Smith shot one man dead with a machine gun and stood by while a “rookie” soldier, Person 4, allegedly executed the second detained Afghan on the orders of a patrol commander.
The Victoria Cross recipient has long maintained there were no Afghans found inside the tunnel of Whiskey 108.
His former squadmate, Person 35, told the court he was the only SAS soldier who went inside the tunnel and he found no people inside.
“The actual tunnel itself, it wasn’t a complex room system or anything that needed multiple angles, it just went down, left for a bit, opened into a room that was easy enough to clear,” Person 35 told the court.
Mr Roberts-Smith’s barrister, Arthur Moses SC, asked Person 35 if he had seen any Afghan nationals inside the tunnel.
“No,” Person 35 responded.
Multiple SAS soldiers, called by Nine newspapers earlier this year, insist they saw Afghans emerge from the tunnel unarmed before being detained.
Some soldiers gave descriptions of the mens’ clothes and ages, and one SAS soldier said Afghan women inside Whiskey 108 had raised the alarm about the tunnel.
“Some males came out of the tunnel … there were at least two but could easily have been three,” a soldier told the court in February.
“They were compliant … they came out unarmed, they came out freely, relatively quickly once given commands.”
Person 35 told the court, on Wednesday, that no one shouted commands into the tunnel because it would have tipped off potential Taliban as to the SAS’ next move.
Everyone in the trial agrees that one of the Afghans killed at Whiskey 108 had a prosthetic leg which became a trophy and drinking vessel for the SAS.
Mr Roberts-Smith told the court he shot the man dead after spotting the suspected insurgent running with a rifle outside Whiskey 108.
Nine and their SAS witnesses claim the one-legged man came out of the tunnel and was frogmarched outside by Mr Roberts-Smith before being executed.
Earlier this week Mr Roberts-Smith’s close friend and former patrol commander, Person 5, denied Nine’s allegations he ordered the rookie to execute the second Afghan.