Roberts-Smith prepares to call first witness as Nine evidence wraps up

The final witness for Nine newspapers has finished giving evidence in the case involving Ben Roberts-Smith. Here’s what happens next.

Nine newspapers have wrapped up their defence against Ben Roberts-Smith’s defamation lawsuit, opening the door for the Victoria Cross recipient to begin calling his witnesses from next week.

The newspapers have been calling witnesses since February to help substantiate articles that claimed Mr Roberts-Smith is a war criminal, bully and abuser.

Mr Roberts-Smith, a highly decorated SAS veteran, denies each of Nine’s claims and says launched defamation proceedings in 2018.

For weeks dozens of the normally secretive SAS community have walked into Sydney’s Federal Court and claimed they witnessed executions and brutality from Mr Roberts-Smith and other comrades.

The last of Nine’s witnesses stepped down from the stand this week before a raft of documents were added to the court’s mammoth file.

Among the documents were interviews between Mr Roberts-Smith and officials from the Australian War Memorial, phone records related to prepaid phones and sensitive documents from the Department of Defence.

Mr Roberts-Smith gave evidence in the middle of 2021 in which he disputed every one of Nine’s claims of illegality and explained the hurt caused by the articles and allegations.

Nine’s barrister, Nicholas Owens SC, has finished calling witnesses for the newspapers in the defamation trial. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Joel Carrett

But from Tuesday a very different cohort of SAS soldiers will step into court, this time it is expected they will testify Mr Roberts-Smith did not carry out execution killings in Afghanistan.

The first will be a senior soldier known as Person 5 who is expected to deny he or Mr Roberts-Smith ordered a junior soldier to execute an Afghan in 2009 so he could be “blooded”.

Then another soldier, known as Person 11, is expected to deny he shot and killed an unarmed farmer who Mr Roberts-Smith had allegedly kicked down a hill.

Person 11 is expected to testify, as did Mr Roberts-Smith, that they shot dead a Taliban spotter in a cornfield during that raid.

More soldiers will likely denounce a culture of rumours and gossip within the elite fighting force which Mr Roberts-Smith has claimed triggered the media firestorm in 2018.

There will be approximately 20 witnesses in total testifying in support of Mr Roberts-Smith’s case before Justice Anthony Besanko begins considering his verdict.