Ben Roberts-Smith case: Tunnel vision rebuts Nine allegations on war crimes

The SAS soldier who searched a tunnel in the Afghan compound known as Whiskey 108 has given evidence it was empty but for a weapons cache, contradicting key allegations by Nine newspapers.

Ben Roberts-Smith arrives at the Supreme Court in Sydney on Wednesday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jeremy Piper

The SAS soldier who searched a tunnel in the Afghan compound known as Whiskey 108 has given evidence it was empty but for a weapons cache, contradicting key allegations by Nine newspapers that two unarmed men were hauled out of the tunnel and then executed.

The soldier, codenamed Person 35, told the Federal Court that when the tunnel was discovered under a pile of hay in the Taliban stronghold on Easter Sunday in 2009, Ben Roberts-Smith had put up his hand to search it.

“Ben volunteered to clear it and I laughed at him,” Person 35 said of the Victoria Cross recipient, who is more than 2m tall and heavily muscled.

“He wasn’t going to fit, and I was. He wasn’t going to fit in that hole.”

The newspapers claim Mr Roberts-Smith was present when his patrol commander ordered another Australian soldier to ­execute one of the Afghans allegedly found in the tunnel so the rookie soldier could be “blooded”.

Nine also claims Mr Roberts-Smith himself machine-gunned the second man, who had a prosthetic leg.

Mr Roberts-Smith denies the claims, saying both men were armed and legitimately engaged outside the compound, and that neither had come out of the ­tunnel. He is suing the news­papers for defamation.

On Wednesday, Person 35 gave evidence that after the tunnel was discovered, the decision was made not to throw a grenade in because it would only weaken the structure of the tunnel and it would have to be searched anyway.

Person 35 removed his body armour and entered the tunnel through the rough-cut hole wearing night vision goggles, armed only with his pistol.

After descending down some earth-cut steps, he came to a short corridor that turned to a hard left and opened on to a larger room, though not high enough for him to stand.

The soldier said there was no one in the tunnel, but he found large amounts of weaponry, including AK 47 variants, ammunition and communication devices. The tunnel also contained what appeared to be a suicide vest, rocket parts and documents.

Person 35 said he was the only SAS soldier who searched the tunnel.

In previous evidence, another soldier, Person 40, said two Afghan men had emerged from the tunnel and were marched off by Mr Roberts-Smith and Person 35.

Another soldier, Person 42, claimed that “at least two but could easily have been three” people came out of the tunnel after being ordered out. Both soldiers said there were women in the courtyard.

Person 35 said no “call out” was done into the tunnel because it might have alerted insurgents to the soldiers’ plans, and the ­patrol did not encounter any ­Afghans in the compound.

Last week, Mr Roberts-Smith’s patrol commander repeatedly denied that unarmed Afghans were found in the tunnel or killed afterwards.

On Wednesday, Person 35 said the first time he heard two men had been found in the tunnel, or that they had been executed, was in 2018, through the media. That was also the first time he had heard the expression “blooding the rookie”.

He said he became aware that one of the men killed at the compound had a prosthetic leg only when he returned to base. The prosthetic leg was later used as a drinking vessel at the Fat Lady’s Arms, the soldiers’ un­official bar.

Person 35 also gave evidence that several soldiers who had given evidence for the news­papers had suggested Mr ­Roberts-Smith did not deserve his VC, awarded for valour at the 2010 battle of Tizak.