Soldier likely to support war hero Ben Roberts-Smith

An SAS soldier known only as Person 11 will contest the Nine newspapers’ centrepiece claim: that he and the Victoria Cross recipient murdered an Afghan farmer.

Ben Roberts-Smith. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw

After almost a year before the court, the Ben Roberts-Smith defamation trial is set to reach a critical juncture as an SAS soldier known only as Person 11 steps into the witness box to contest the Nine newspapers’ centrepiece claim: that he and the Victoria Cross recipient murdered an Afghan farmer.

The newspapers allege Mr Roberts-Smith kicked the handcuffed Ali Jan off a cliff in the ­village of Darwan in September 2012, and then – with Person 11 – dragged him aside and killed him.

Person 11 is expected to deny that claim on Tuesday when he testifies in the Federal Court about what he saw – and did – as SAS soldiers raided Darwan in the hunt for a rogue Afghan army sergeant who two weeks earlier had killed three Australian soldiers.

Late in the mission – just ­before the soldiers were due to be extracted – the newspapers claim Ali Jan was detained and interrogated by Mr Roberts-Smith. Another Afghan detained that day has previously testified that when “the big soldier” said something to Ali Jan, the farmer made the mistake of smiling, and was kicked down the cliff by the soldier.

An Australian soldier serving as second in command to Mr Roberts-Smith, known as Person 4, has given evidence that the man was “catapulted backwards and fell down the slope”, where he landed in a dry creek bed, crashing into a rock so forcefully it knocked out many of his teeth.

Person 4 said Mr Roberts-Smith then instructed him and Person 11 to drag the man to a nearby tree. He then heard shots ring out and turned to see Person 11 with his rifle in the firing position.

Nine claims Mr Roberts-Smith or Person 11 or both killed Ali Jan.

Mr Roberts-Smith says the incident simply did not happen.

He says Person 11 discovered a FAM (fighting age male) in a cornfield near Mr Roberts-Smith’s patrol’s extraction point and opened fire, and that he then also fired at the man, who was killed in the skirmish. Mr Roberts-Smith says a radio found on the body confirmed the man was a “spotter” for the Taliban.

Person 11 is expected to support Mr Roberts-Smith’s account of the incident. He is also likely to be asked about another killing at Darwan earlier in the mission, before the incident ­involving Ali Jan.

Nine originally claimed in its truth defence – though not in its newspaper articles – that Mr Roberts-Smith had shot dead an unarmed man after swimming across the Helmand River to search for a suspected spotter.

When the newspapers later dropped the claim, counsel for Mr Roberts-Smith, Bruce McClintock SC, condemned it as false, saying the man killed was an insurgent armed with an AK 47 rifle and detonators.

“So far as being unarmed, my client put on display the AK-47 in the patrol room at Tarinkot,” Mr McClintock said.

A former SAS regimental sergeant major known as Person 100 testified on Monday that a group of soldiers had approached him in 2013 to complain that Mr Roberts-Smith was not “a fit and proper person” to receive the VC, and that he was a bully.

However, none of the soldiers had raised any allegations of war crimes or that Mr Roberts-Smith had broken the rules of engagement in Afghanistan, Person 100 said. “No allegations were made to me to report,” he told the court.