SAS soldier contradicts Ben Roberts-Smith on crucial detail
An SAS soldier says he found suspected insurgents hiding in a tunnel in a raid - that contradicts important evidence given by Ben Roberts-Smith.
An SAS soldier has contradicted Ben Roberts-Smith on a crucial detail about an alleged war crime killing.
Mr Roberts-Smith is suing Nine and its journalists over a series of articles claiming they falsely accused him of six killings while deployed in Afghanistan with the SAS.
Nine maintains the accusations are true and have called SAS witnesses who they say will back up their claims.
The Federal Court, on Wednesday, heard evidence from an SAS soldier known only as Person 42 for national security reasons.
Person 42 told the court he was part of an SAS assault on a Taliban compound known as Whiskey 108 in 2009.
The SAS had stormed the compound after it was flattened by a massive bomb and Mr Roberts-Smith killed an insurgent with a prosthetic leg during the battle, the court has heard.
But the nature of the killing - either fair fight or criminal execution - has become a central dispute in the defamation trial.
Mr Roberts-Smith has told the court he shot the man with a fake leg after spotting him outside the Whiskey 108 compound.
The ageing insurgent was armed with a rifle, Mr Roberts-Smith said, and was moving quickly when Mr Roberts-Smith brought him down.
But Nine claims the Afghan was one of at least two suspected fighters detained and handcuffed after being found in a tunnel inside the compound a few moments earlier.
Person 42 told the court he was among a group of SAS soldiers who had discovered the tunnel hidden under grass and debris after a group of agitated Afghan women raised the alarm.
His patrol called out in their basic Pashto for the men in the short, squat tunnel to come out with their hands up.
“Some males came out of the tunnel... there were at least two but could easily have been three,” Person 42 told the court.
“They were compliant... they came out unarmed, they came out freely, relatively quickly once given commands - the ‘hands up’ order.”
Person 42 said the SAS handcuffed and frisked the Afghans for weapons and found nothing.
The SAS soldier, in his evidence, could not describe the appearance of the Afghan men from the tunnel or exactly how many men were detained.
Person 42 told the court he did not witness what happened to the Afghans after they were handed over to other SAS soldiers.
Person 42‘s evidence directly contradicts Mr Roberts-Smith’s version of events.
“There were no men in the tunnel … that is completely false,” Mr Roberts-Smith told the court in June last year.
Person 42 told the court his patrol had also found nearby weapons‘ caches including grenades and explosives.
Mr Roberts-Smith‘s barrister, Bruce McClintock SC, said weaponry and opium found at Whiskey 108 proved it was a Taliban base.
“The contents of the material in the tunnel conclusively demonstrate that man was a member of the Taliban, an insurgent, a member of the anti-coalition militia,” he said at the start of the trial.
Nine claims Mr Roberts-Smith ultimately marched the one-legged Afghan outside Whiskey 108, threw him to the ground and executed him with an extended burst of a machine gun.
Mr Roberts-Smith denies that claim and Person 42 was unable to reveal the fate of the Afghans he says he detained.
Nine also claims Mr Roberts-Smith was involved in the execution of another of the Afghan men pulled from the tunnel during the raid.
Nine claims, in court documents, Mr Roberts-Smith watched as SAS soldier Person 5 forced the second captured Afghan down to his knees in front of the troop‘s “rookie”.
Person 5 ordered the rookie to shoot the Afghan dead so the young SAS soldier would be “blooded” - and the rookie followed the murderous order, Nine claims.
Nine says Mr Roberts-Smith was complicit because he did not intervene.
Mr Roberts-Smith denies that allegation.
Two weeks ago an SAS soldier known as Person 41 had also pointed the finger at Mr Roberts-Smith for the “blooding of the rookie” but his version of events differed significantly from Nine‘s.
Person 41 told the court Mr Roberts-Smith had ordered the rookie to kill the detained Afghan - and not Person 5.
Mr Roberts-Smith‘s lawyers accused him of lying on the stand.
“That‘s incorrect - I know what I saw,” Person 41 told the court.
The trial continues.