Australia’s most decorated soldier, Ben Roberts-Smith, has been arrested over alleged Afghanistan war crimes following a years-long witch-hunt led by left-wing journalists and woke bureaucrats.
Roberts-Smith, 47, a former corporal in the Special Air Service Regiment and Victoria Cross recipient, was arrested at Sydney Airport on Tuesday by the officers from the Australian Federal Police and the Office of Special Investigator, an anti-war crimes taskforce, as part of an investigation launched in 2021.
He was taken into custody after arriving on a flight from Brisbane, and AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett said he was expected to be charged with five counts of war crimes murders and face court today.
The AFP said the charges related to the following alleged offences:
- The war crime of murder, in that he intentionally caused the death of a person, on or about 12 April, 2009, at Kakarak, Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan;
- The war crime of murder, in that he aided, abetted, counselled or procured another person to intentionally cause the death of a person, on or about 12 April, 2009, at Kakarak, Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan;
- The war crime of murder, in that he aided, abetted, counselled or procured another person to intentionally cause the death of a person, on or about 11 September, 2012, at Darwan, Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan;
- The war crime of murder, with another person, in that they intentionally caused the death of a person, on or about 20 October, 2012, in Syahchow, Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan; and,
- The war crime of murder, in that he aided, abetted, counselled or procured another person to intentionally cause the death of a person, on or about 20 October, 2012, at Syahchow, Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan.
The charge of “war crime – murder” carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
Ms Barrett, who is facing criticism for her handling of the Bondi Islamic terrorist attack and focus on “hate speech”, said in a statement that the expected charges were “confined to a very small section of our trusted and respected ADF, which helps keep this country safe”.
“I want to thank the hardworking members of OSI and AFP for their continued dedication. I also want to thank state and territory law enforcement agencies that have provided assistance during this investigation,” she said.
I remain steadfast in my support of Ben Roberts-Smith despite news of his arrest today.
Ben, his immediate and broader defence family need the Australian people’s support right now and I will not abandon him like so many other politicians.
Ben was disgracefully arrested in…
— Pauline Hanson
(@PaulineHansonOz) April 7, 2026
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson spoke out in defence of Roberts-Smith after the arrest on Tuesday, saying “I remain steadfast in my support of Ben Roberts-Smith”.
“Ben, his immediate and broader defence family need the Australian people’s support right now and I will not abandon him like so many other politicians,” she wrote.
“Ben was disgracefully arrested in front of his twin 15-year-old girls. He will be held in jail for 7 days. He gets just one bail application. If that application fails, they can hold him for 2 years. AFP and OSI have spent $300 million dollars over 10 years to get to this point.”
Roberts-Smith was first accused of war crimes by by leftist journalists from corporate media giant Nine Entertainment in 2017. They were aided by Liberal MP Andrew Hastie, who gave evidence against his former SASR comrade during his defamation trial.
In 2023 he lost his lawsuit against Fairfax Media and journalists Nick McKenzie, Chris Masters and David Wroe after the Federal Court found allegations against him were “substantially true”. He then lost an appeal, and had an application to appeal again to the High Court rejected last year.
Earlier this year it was revealed that Nine paid $700,000 in hush money to Roberts-Smith’s mistress in a secret settlement after she threatened to sue over allegations McKenzie had broken a promise not to subpoena her to give evidence or reveal her as a source in the trial.
Roberts-Smith was awarded the Victoria Cross for his heroism in a battle in Tizak in Afghanistan’s Kandahar Province in 2010 where he risked his life to kill two Taliban machine gun teams.
“Demonstrating extreme devotion to duty and the most conspicuous gallantry in action in the face of a very determined and aggressive enemy and with total disregard for his own safety, Corporal Benjamin Roberts-Smith initiated an assault against an elevated fortification consisting of three enemy machine gun positions and superior numbers of heavily armed insurgents,” his Victoria Cross citation states.
“With members of his patrol pinned down by the three enemy machine gun positions, he knowingly and willingly exposed his position in order to draw fire away from his team mates and enabled them to apply fire against the enemy.
“Fighting at ranges as close as 20 metres, he seized the advantage and, demonstrating extreme devotion to duty and the most conspicuous gallantry and with total disregard for his own safety, Corporal Roberts-Smith stormed two enemy machine gun positions killing both machine gun teams.
“His selfless actions in circumstances of great peril served to enable his patrol to break into the enemy’s defences and to regain the initiative, thereby resulting in a tactical victory against an enemy more than three times the size of the ground force.”
In a book published last year, The Last Battle, author Aaron Patrick revealed Roberts-Smith’s 35 Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) E Troop soldiers were betrayed during the battle by a group of Afghan soldiers who were supposed to be assisting them.
“E troop was required to take Afghan soldiers on missions. After one was badly wounded, the rest had sheltered behind a stone wall and refused to move. Worse still, they contacted the Taliban in Tizak over their radios and began trying to negotiate a deal,” he wrote.
“If they swapped sides, would they be allowed to leave? The policemen offered to kill their SASR team leader, his interpreter and as many other Australians as they could.
“They would wait until several of the Australians had been injured or killed before executing the plan. The radio communications were overheard by an interpreter, an Afghan ex-Marine with US citizenship who immediately told the SASR soldier responsible for managing the Afghan troops.”
While the Afghan soldiers were plotting their betrayal, Roberts-Smith patrol decided to attack Taliban machinegun positions despite being pinned down by heavy fire, ultimately gaining the upper hand and killing 22 enemy combatants, and the SASR cleared the village after seven hours of intense fighting.
A photo taken after that battle shows Roberts-Smith, who famously wore a crusader patch on his uniform, and five other SASR operators posing behind the bodies of dead Taliban fighters.
Header image: Left, Ben Roberts Smith being arrested. Right, Ben Roberts-Smith in Afghanistan (ADF).
The post SAS hero Ben Roberts Smith arrested in Afghanistan war crimes witch-hunt first appeared on The Noticer.
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