Roberts-Smith texts, ‘kill site’ pics released

An anonymous letter, intimate texts with a ‘mistress’ and photos of an alleged Afghan murder site shed new light on defamation trial.

Ben Roberts-Smith outside Sydney’s Federal Court last month Picture: Gaye Gerard

An anonymous letter, intimate texts with a “mistress” and photos of an alleged Afghan murder site have been released by the Federal Court, shedding new light on Ben Roberts-Smith’s so-called trial of the century.

Mr Roberts-Smith, the ­nation’s most decorated living soldier, has had his defamation lawsuit against Nine delayed ­because of Sydney’s Covid-19 outbreak.

But late on Friday the Federal Court released a tranche of exhibits including mission plans drawn up for Mr Roberts-Smith’s elite SAS unit in Afghanistan.

One series of photographs, with splashes of red pen, shows the village of Darwan in Afghanistan. Mr Roberts-Smith is accused by Nine of kicking an unarmed shepherd named Ali Jan off a cliff at Darwan in 2012 before ordering his execution.

The SAS veteran has completely denied the allegation as well as five other murders alleged by Nine. He said there was no cliff in Darwan.

Mr Roberts-Smith was asked in court to mark up photographs of villages where Nine alleges he committed murders.

In the case of Darwan, the court viewed a video of the creek bed where Ali Jan allegedly met his end. The “cliff”, as it was described by Nine, appeared in the 2019 video as a dirt incline that a man walks down.

Also released by the court were text messages between Mr Roberts-Smith and a woman known as Person 17.

Nine claims Person 17 became Mr Roberts-Smith’s mistress at the end of 2017. The soldier told the court he was secretly separated from his wife Emma at the time.

The court has heard Mr Roberts-Smith and Person 17 had a tumultuous relationship that ended after Mr Roberts-Smith accused Person 17 of faking a pregnancy and an abortion.

He told the court he sent a private investigator to film her at a Brisbane hospital to check she was going through with the termination and, on his telling of events, the video confirmed she was lying.

Mr Roberts-Smith also told the court Person 17, at the end of their relationship, watched him board a flight in Brisbane before driving to his matrimonial home to confront his wife, Ms Roberts.

The texts released on Friday show how Mr Roberts-Smith reacted when he found out.

“This is outright blackmail,” he wrote to Person 17.

She disagreed.

“Please don’t waste your time with intimidation and payback,” she wrote back according to the documents, saying she understood what he was “capable of” doing. “I immediately put in place ‘insurance’ in the event anything should happen to me or my family.”

Mr Roberts-Smith denies ever threatening Person 17 or committing any act of violence against her.

Some weeks before these events, the court heard last month, Person 17 fell down a staircase while at a black-tie event in Canberra with Mr Roberts-Smith.

Nine claimed the elite soldier was infuriated and, back at his hotel, struck her in the face, which Mr Roberts-Smith denies.

NCA Newswire