‘Stick to the code’: New tapes reveal Ben Roberts-Smith’s campaign to silence soldiers

Disgraced war hero Ben Roberts-Smith waged an aggressive campaign to cover up his war crimes, invoking a special forces’ code of silence as well as smearing and threatening those he thought had revealed his misconduct.

The Victoria Cross recipient lost a landmark defamation case against The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Canberra Times on Thursday, with a judge finding he had committed war crimes and was a murderer. It can now also be revealed that the Australian Federal Police has submitted a new brief of evidence to Commonwealth prosecutors over allegations Roberts-Smith intimidated witnesses at that trial.

The extent of the cover-up campaign is revealed in fresh evidence, including a tape recording in which Roberts-Smith attacks those in the Special Air Services “that talk out of school”.

As well as attacking soldiers, Roberts-Smith is also heard on the tape deriding the Brereton Inquiry into war crimes as “some broad sweeping thing that f---s everyone over”. The Brereton inquiry found credible evidence of dozens of war crimes and resulted in the first-ever prosecution of an Australian soldier.

The tape reveals that to silence one Afghanistan veteran, Roberts-Smith sent a legal threat to Australia’s richest woman, Gina Rinehart – the veteran’s relative – warning that the ex-soldier would be sued for speaking ill of him.

In response to concerns that a different former SAS soldier was questioning Roberts-Smith’s past, Roberts-Smith secretly commissioned a private detective to investigate. That investigator produced a report marked “private” that not only profiled the veteran, but also his wife and parents.

Witnesses have told the federal police that Roberts-Smith used the same private eye to unwittingly post threatening letters to a third SAS soldier he suspected of breaking ranks, and he arranged for a fourth special forces soldier to be attacked in a national newspaper and to be raided by state police as the result of a false complaint.

Police have countered Roberts-Smith’s efforts not only by convincing key witnesses to co-operate but with federal agents tapping Roberts-Smith’s phones in 2018. After this, Roberts-Smith switched to burner phones.

Police then bugged his meetings, including an extraordinary coffee date at a Canberra cafe during which Roberts-Smith sought to test the loyalty of a fifth SAS soldier.

The soldier responded by accusing Roberts-Smith of war crimes.

Sources, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential investigations, have confirmed the federal police’s key success to date has been convincing figures who were once in Roberts-Smith’s inner circle to turn on him, becoming police informants.

At least four former members of Roberts-Smith’s inner circle have provided police intelligence or sworn statements, including about the cover-up campaign. The most significant of these witnesses is a soldier who served as Roberts-Smith’s deputy patrol commander and Roberts-Smith’s ex-private eye, John McLeod.

‘Pretty uncool’ to email Gina

The tape recording captures Roberts-Smith in a tense discussion with a fellow SAS Afghan veteran in January 2018, after Roberts-Smith had contacted the veteran’s relative, Rinehart, to warn her that the soldier was spreading negative information about him.

The veteran was among those who had seen Roberts-Smith encouraging mock prisoner executions in 2012 during an SAS pre-deployment training program in Australia.

“Emailing Gina Rinehart with that document … was pretty uncool,” the ex-soldier said on the secret recording. “If you want to cause disruption in my life it’s an easy way to do it. Send a few emails to her and you’ll certainly give us a headache but that’s up to you.”

Roberts-Smith responded by explaining he had decided to “go loud” with his legal threats, using a military term for removing a suppressor or silencer from a weapon. He vowed to follow through on those threats against those he suspected of disloyalty.

“I was going to sue those people … and absolutely have no doubt that was going to happen,” Roberts-Smith said. “A lot of people talk a lot of shit … at the point that you got sent that letter [also sent to Rinehart] is ’cos a number of people were saying a number of things. I know you have talked shit about me. I know that.”

Roberts-Smith also lashed out at soldiers breaking the SAS code of silence.

“A few people [in the SAS] had done what we don’t do and that’s talk out of school,” Roberts-Smith is heard to say. “It’s real simple. I stick to the f---ing code mate, 100 per cent, and I have.

“So all the shit that’s going on, I’m still probably the only c--- that hasn’t f---ing spoken. I’d like it all to be f---ing gone away. All these people talking are just doing more damage to the unit [the SAS]. And have done damage to the unit. And continue to do damage to the unit and it’s all very disheartening to be frank, ’cos nothing’s going to f---ing change at my end.”

Code of silence

In November 2020, the Brereton inquiry found the code prioritised “loyalty to one’s mates, immediate superiors and the unit … in which secrecy is at a premium and in which those who ‘leak’ are anathema”.

While Roberts-Smith has publicly insisted he supported the work of the Brereton inquiry, on the recording he can be heard attacking it as “some broad sweeping thing that f---s everyone over and has no purpose and is not necessary”.

The inquiry found credible evidence that multiple SAS soldiers may have committed dozens of war crimes, including the execution of prisoners and civilians.

The federal police, which has been running ongoing war crimes investigations into Roberts-Smith since 2018, has also obtained evidence of the famous ex-soldier approaching SAS Afghan veterans and quizzing them on whether they intended to remain silent.

Sources have revealed how police covertly bugged a meeting between Roberts-Smith and another SAS Afghan veteran in which Roberts-Smith sought to extract assurances about what the soldier would say if subpoenaed to court.

The bugging operation occurred at Canberra’s Muse cafe in 2018. During the meeting, as this masthead reported on Friday, Roberts-Smith pressed the SAS soldier about whether he would testify about executions in the defamation court case.

This man, whose right leg is prosthetic, was among Afghans killed in 2009 in a now proven war crime.

The soldier responded that he would tell the truth if he was subpoenaed. He also told Roberts-Smith that the Victoria Cross recipient had acted in a “loose” fashion during an operation in which Roberts-Smith murdered an Afghan prisoner with a prosthetic leg.

Roberts-Smith told the witness that if he did not remember what happened during certain missions, he couldn’t be charged with perjury.

The SAS soldier responded by accusing Roberts-Smith of serious misconduct, including machine-gunning an Afghan prisoner at a compound in Southern Afghanistan called Whiskey 108. Justice Besanko found that the allegations about the executing of the detainee at Whiskey 108 was proven true in the trial.

More threats, more pressure

The federal police has evidence implicating Roberts-Smith in the intimidation of two other SAS soldiers who gave evidence in the defamation trial.

In the defamation case against this masthead, the soldiers were given the pseudonyms person 18 and person 6 and were revealed as potential witnesses to Roberts-Smith’s involvement in the execution of Afghan prisoners. Both are singled out on the tape recording.

Efforts to intimidate the two witnesses were first uncovered and reported by this masthead in June 2018, although Roberts-Smith was not identified as the likely culprit at the time because of an absence of corroborative evidence.

The 2018 reports were limited to detailing how Person 18 had received two anonymous and threatening letters, while an anonymous and false complaint had been separately sent to police claiming person 6 had a stash of illegal guns.

This masthead recently confirmed the federal police have obtained witness statements from former members of Roberts-Smith’s inner circle implicating him in the plots to intimidate Person 6 and Person 18.

The police inquiry that identified the new witnesses has been running for two years in response to revelations in this masthead and on 60 Minutes about Roberts-Smith’s efforts to scare SAS soldiers into silence and to hide evidence, including by burying USB sticks in a pink lunchbox in his backyard.

The disclosures by the new police witnesses form part of a criminal brief of evidence federal police submitted in November to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions.

Private investigator John McLeod told the Federal Court about the collapse of his friendship with Roberts-Smith.Credit: Peter Rae

It is the third brief of evidence about Roberts-Smith’s alleged criminality submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions by the federal police, with two briefs alleging war crimes having been submitted in May 2020.

A key part of the latest investigation is information provided to detectives by private investigator and ex-Queensland policeman John McLeod. He has told detectives he was directed by Roberts-Smith to post letters to Person 18 in June 2018 but that he had no idea of their content.

According to official sources whose identity cannot be disclosed, McLeod has also told detectives that Roberts-Smith directed him to send anonymous emails to police, accusing Person 6 of having a stash of illegal automatic weapons and posing a grave threat to public safety.

When McLeod’s initial anonymous emails failed to prompt police action, McLeod tasked a Queensland-based paparazzo to contact The Australian newspaper to pass on the anonymous allegations.

The newspaper subsequently reported the allegations about Person 6, who was also raided by state authorities. No weapons were found and the inquiry was abandoned.

In the latest brief of evidence submitted to prosecutors detailing this SAS witness intimidation, federal police reference a text message that Roberts-Smith sent after the police raid on Person 6. In the message, he says the raid would “scare the others”.

During the defamation trial, McLeod testified he was used and manipulated by a lying Roberts-Smith to engage in conduct he only later realised was aimed at silencing SAS witnesses.

In 2017, McLeod was also secretly commissioned by Roberts-Smith to investigate SAS whistleblower Evan Donaldson after, in social media posts in 2016, he questioned Roberts-Smith’s conduct.

A report written by McLeod and provided to Roberts-Smith describes how the private eye had aimed to “reconnoitre Evan Donaldson’s biography, habits, networks and public persona in order to inform a deeper understanding of his current and future disposition”.

The 325-page report, marked “commercial-in-confidence”, not only profiles Donaldson but his wife and other family members.

“Evan Donaldson appears to harbour latent resentment toward Ben Roberts-Smith, VC. Donaldson has posted a number of vilifying, late-night tweets attacking Roberts-Smith that have since each been deleted from his profile.

“In doing so, Donaldson demonstrates an understanding of the negative ramifications associated with disparaging the well-liked and greatly admired VC winner.”

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