Ben Roberts-Smith case: Witness denies killing Afghan

Ben Roberts-Smith’s former SAS patrol commander has emphatically denied ever killing an unarmed Afghan, or ordering anyone else to do so.

Ben Roberts-Smith at the Federal Court in Sydney. Picture: NCA NewsWire / James Gourley

On the first day of Ben Roberts-Smith’s counter-attack against claims he committed war crimes, his former SAS patrol commander has emphatically denied ever killing an unarmed Afghan, or ordering anyone else to do so.

The soldier, known as Person 5, also gave evidence that a tunnel discovered in an Afghan compound was empty, countering claims by Nine newspapers that he had ordered the execution of an elderly man found hiding in it.

The newspapers claim Mr Roberts-Smith was present when Person 5 ordered another Australian soldier – Person 4 – to execute the man, so that Person 4 could be “blooded”. Nine also claims Mr Roberts-Smith himself machine-gunned a second man pulled from the tunnel.

Person 5, now retired from the military, is the first SAS witness to be called by the Victoria Cross winner in his defamation action against Nine newspapers.

Person 5 began his career with the Royal Marines and the Special Boat Service in the UK before joining the SAS in 2002, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and rising to the rank of sergeant.

The veteran soldier was part of a raid on a compound known as Whiskey 108 in Uruzgan province on Easter Sunday in 2009.

Person 5 gave evidence about the moment a tunnel was discovered beneath a suspicious-looking mound of hay in the compound. Several soldiers volunteered to enter the tunnel to search it but the task eventually fell to a soldier known as Person 35, chosen because his slight stature would make it easier to navigate the confined space.

Person 35 took off his body armour and armed only with a pistol entered the tunnel, re-emerging after a couple of minutes to announce the tunnel was clear, Person 5 testified.

Person 5 said he then went to a meeting a short distance away with other team commanders. After hearing gunshots he ran towards the sound, where he saw Mr Roberts-Smith and another soldier, Person 4, in the northwest corner of the compound.

He shouted to Mr Roberts-Smith, who told him they had just engaged two Taliban “squirters”.

“Are they KIA (killed in action)?” Person 5 asked.

“Yes”, Mr Roberts-Smith replied.

One of the dead men had a prosthetic leg, which Person 5 says he examined because there had been reports of a Taliban operative hiding explosives in an artificial limb. But nothing suspicious was found.

Person 5 said he later asked Mr Roberts-Smith what had happened to the prosthetic leg because it was no longer beside the body. “That dickhead’s got it,’ Mr Roberts-Smith replied, according to Person 5.

That was a reference, he said to Person 6, a soldier who was Mr Roberts-Smith’s arch enemy within the SAS.

The next time he saw the leg it was being used as a drinking vessel in an unofficial bar known as The Fat Ladies Arms.

Person 5 agreed that, like several other soldiers who have given evidence at the trial, he had drunk out of the leg, describing it as “a cultural thing”.

Person 4 has refused to answer questions about his alleged execution of the elderly man in Whiskey 108 on the grounds of self-incrimination.

Another soldier, Person 41, has alleged it was Mr Roberts-Smith, not Person 5, who ordered the execution of the man.

In previous evidence for the newspapers, a soldier known as Person 24 told the court that just before the Whiskey 108 mission, he saw Person 5 at SAS headquarters in a jovial mood, “dancing a bit of a jig”.

“He said that we are going to ‘blood the rookie’,” Person 24 ­alleged.

However in evidence on Tuesday Person 5 denied he had ever used the term, and had not even heard of it until the newspaper’s allegation.

He also denied that he had ever killed a PUC (person under control) or ordered anyone else to do so.

Mr Roberts-Smith says the Afghan he killed that day was an armed insurgent coming around the corner of the compound.