Ben Roberts-Smith hits Fairfax Media with defamation suit
Ben Roberts-Smith breaks his silence on the rumours that have dogged him and the incident with a woman who was not his wife.
Australia’s most decorated war hero, Ben Roberts-Smith, has lashed out at a small band of disgruntled former SAS troopers who he accuses of running an anonymous smear campaign that has ruined his reputation and seen him accused of everything from war crimes to violence against women.
In an exclusive, wide-ranging interview with The Weekend Australian, Mr Roberts-Smith broke his silence to respond to years of rumours that he abused Afghan prisoners while he was a trooper with the SASR, that he bullied and assaulted fellow troops in the field and that he was involved in an ugly domestic violence incident with a young woman after a function at Canberra’s Parliament House.
The Victoria Cross recipient said he had yet to be interviewed by the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force, who is conducting an inquiry into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan.
He added that in 20 years of military service no formal allegation of wrongdoing had ever been put to him.
Mr Roberts-Smith also gave his most thorough account yet of a battle in 2006 in which an Afghan spotter was shot dead and Mr Roberts-Smith was awarded the Medal of Gallantry for his bravery under fire.
An at-times emotional Mr Roberts-Smith said rumours and reports about his service record in Afghanistan had had a “devastating’’ effect on his life and family and left him in profound shock.
“My family and I sit here and wonder, what’s next?” he said. “What’s the next lie that’s going to run in the paper? I’m not a politician, I’m not famous. I went and fought for my country, and I’m being attacked because I fought for my country and I got a medal. I just don’t understand how I today am sitting here in this position. I really don’t.’’
The VC recipient’s comments followed reports in Fairfax Media yesterday alleging he had engaged in an extramarital affair with a woman who had then accused him of domestic violence.
Mr Roberts-Smith said the truth was very different. He said that during the period in question he was separated from his wife, their marriage having come under “significant pressure’’.
In that time, he began a relationship with a woman who, along with Mr Roberts-Smith, attended a function at Parliament House on March 28. Mr Roberts-Smith said that, after the function, while he was summoning a car, the woman, who he said was heavily intoxicated, fell down a flight of stairs.
“When I got there, there were two federal police officers; they were basically holding her up. She had a huge lump on the top of her head and what appeared to be a scrape on the top of her eye and she said she had a sore hip.
“But she was very intoxicated to the point of being incoherent, so they were literally holding her up.’’
An ACT Police spokeswoman refused to say if an investigation had been initiated, or even if a complaint had been made.
Mr Roberts-Smith categorically denied any suggestion he was violent towards the woman and said he had never been contacted by the police about it.
He said he accompanied the woman to the airport the next day and even saw her a few more times before breaking off the relationship a week later.
He said the domestic violence allegation had come “completely out of the blue’’.
He said his wife knew about the relationship and they were back together, in love, and had resolved to work things out.
“The fact that I have to explain why my wife and I decided to have a break in our relationship, it’s a bit harsh,’’ he said.
Mr Roberts-Smith received the commonwealth’s highest bravery honour, the Victoria Cross, in 2010 and the Medal of Gallantry in 2006 for his courage during a battle in Afghanistan’s Chora Valley. That engagement has been mired in controversy amid suggestions the six-man patrol, led by Mr Roberts-Smith, shot a young Afghan on the grounds he was a Taliban spotter.
Mr Roberts-Smith said any suggestion the young man was an innocent shepherd, and not a Taliban scout, failed to understand the full context of the battle and the numerous witness reports that followed it.
“There had been a significant battle that had played out prior to that spotter looking for us,’’ he said. “Post that battle, on the valley floor, we were engaging insurgents with aircraft. What that meant was they knew there had to be a team somewhere identifying where to drop the bombs.’’
Mr Roberts-Smith said there were guys walking “all over the hill’’, including other spotters who were too far away to disclose the patrol’s position and therefore not worth engaging.
“Let’s say he might have been a shepherd,’’ Mr Roberts-Smith said. “There was no sheep up there. It’s hard to be a shepherd if there’s no sheep. The guy was a spotter. He was engaged and when he was engaged there was some kind of ordnance that he was carrying, whether it was a flare, a smoke grenade and RPG booster — whatever it was, that detonated. That essentially confirmed he was a spotter.’’
Mr Roberts-Smith denied claims he had physically assaulted Afghan detainees. He said a report that he had to be physically pulled off a detainee by two other members of his patrol did not happen. “That is a fabrication and a blatant lie and that will be vigorously defended,’’ he said.
Mr Roberts-Smith’s denials come as the IGADF nears the end of his two-year secret investigation into allegations members of Australia’s special forces breached the laws of war during the decade-long battle in Afghanistan.
Judge Paul Brereton, who is running the inquiry for the IGADF, is expected to hand in his report this year and there is an expectation within Defence that at least some claims of misconduct will be deemed credible.
Mr Roberts-Smith said he had not been interviewed by the Brereton inquiry and that the only contact he had had with the IGADF was through his own lawyers in relation to reports about his service.
Mr Roberts-Smith, the Seven Network’s managing director in Queensland, yesterday lodged a defamation action in the Federal Court in Sydney against Fairfax Media.
He accuses the publisher of conducting a long-running “hatchet job’’ on him, led, he says, by a small band of disgruntled SAS troopers.
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