Nick McKenzie, Chris Masters and Perry Duffin
Updated April 7, 2026 — 10:34am, first published 9:19am
Ben Roberts-Smith has been arrested in relation to multiple counts of murdering unarmed Afghan civilians and prisoners in what looms as the most significant war crimes prosecution in Australian history.
Roberts-Smith is expected to be charged on Tuesday with five counts of war crime - murder following a joint investigation between the Office of Special Investigator and the Australian Federal Police. The maximum penalty for the offence of war crime - murder is life imprisonment.
Ben Roberts-Smith has been arrested in relation to multiple counts of murdering unarmed Afghan civilians and prisoners.
The arrest of the decorated former special forces soldier comes after a five-year investigation secured the co-operation of SAS eyewitnesses who are expected to allege that Roberts-Smith himself executed, and directed junior soldiers to execute, at least half a dozen defenceless detainees during his time in Afghanistan between 2006 and 2012.
The 47-year-old was arrested at Sydney Airport after arriving on a flight from Brisbane on Tuesday morning. AFP officers were seen waiting at the arrivals gate for QF515 when it arrived just after 11am.
Addressing a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese refused to answer repeated questioning on Roberts-Smith’s arrest.
“I have no intention of commenting on a matter that’s clearly before the courts,” Albanese said, later adding that his commentary may prejudice the case.
Ben Roberts-Smith is arrested at Sydney Airport on Tuesday morning.Nine
“I’m not going to confirm anything to do with the legal matter. That is a matter that is very important, that there not be political engagement in what is a matter that is now the subject of legal proceedings.”
The investigation into Roberts-Smith focused on claims, strongly disputed by him, involving allegations he:
The decorated war veteran has been taken into custody. Nic Walker
When Roberts-Smith allegedly ordered that 2012 execution, he was the most decorated Commonwealth soldier to serve in Afghanistan. If proved, the allegations the Victoria Cross recipient faces may mean he is stripped of his medals and jailed for life.
While only a jury can decide Roberts-Smith’s guilt, a prosecution would mark a spectacular fall from grace of a one-time war hero fiercely backed by politicians, including former defence minister and Australian War Memorial chairman Brendan Nelson and One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, as well as billionaire Kerry Stokes.
Roberts-Smith has already unsuccessfully contested claims he committed war crimes, including murders, in a defamation case he fought all the way to the High Court . The High Court in September refused him leave to appeal a full Federal Court decision that, in turn, backed the 2023 judgment of Federal Court judge Anthony Besanko that The Age and Sydney Morning Herald had proved the allegations true to the civil standard.
Roberts-Smith, the son of a former West Australian Supreme Court judge and major general, joined the army in 1996 and became Australia’s most famous modern soldier after he was awarded the VC for his actions in a 2010 battle.
He has always denied any wrongdoing and it is anticipated he would fight criminal charges.
Official sources, speaking anonymously because they are not authorised to comment, said the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) had recently contacted Attorney-General Michelle Rowland seeking authorisation for a prosecution, as required when an alleged war crimes case is deemed worthy of criminal charges.
Over the past five years, a team of experienced state and federal police detectives, recruited from various Australian homicide and other elite squads as part of the highly secretive OSI, quietly built the case against Roberts-Smith.
The OSI was created in early 2021 to investigate the involvement of the SAS regiment in Afghan War crimes.
According to confidential sources, OSI detectives have tapped phones in Australia and offshore, planted listening devices, conducted raids and, most significantly, convinced SASR soldiers who had allegedly witnessed or were implicated in Roberts-Smith’s war crimes to become prosecution witnesses.
The case against Roberts-Smith is sprawling, but not circumstantial: its foundation is in the witness accounts of decorated SAS soldiers and Afghan War veterans.
Told of the looming charges, one SAS eyewitness told this masthead that he and other veterans had decided to assist the OSI because no Australian soldier was above the law, no matter how grim the fallout.
“Well, it’s all about the truth, and I think, honour. And we lost men in Afghanistan, like regular army fellas and the commandos. And how do you honour them? By telling the truth,” he said, speaking anonymously due to confidentiality requirements.
He alleged the war crime he had witnessed involved a defenceless detainee and occurred “after the dust has settled”.
“There’s no fog of war, there’s no bullets flying around … this was completely contrary to our mission, we weren’t there to kill civilians or people who didn’t deserve to die.”
Some of the witness accounts have been aired in the unsuccessful civil defamation action that Roberts-Smith launched in 2018 against this masthead. Their testimony was pivotal to the determination of the Federal Court, upheld by the Full Court of the Federal Court, that Roberts-Smith had murdered unarmed detainees and civilians.
The three senior Full Court judges ruled Roberts-Smith a war criminal to the civil “balance of probabilities” standard. Ruling on the alleged execution of a man with a prosthetic leg, they said: “The problem for [Roberts-Smith] is that, unlike most homicides, there were three eyewitnesses to this murder.”
Roberts-Smith applied for leave to appeal to the High Court. The court refused his application.
The impending criminal charges mark the latest chapter of an extraordinary saga that began when The Age and Sydney Morning Herald began a major investigation into Roberts-Smith in late 2017.
The investigation unearthed many of the alleged war crimes later probed by the OSI. These were detailed in dozens of articles published between 2018 and 2023.
In 2019, this masthead and 60 Minutes interviewed two serving SAS whistleblowers and travelled to Afghanistan to interview the wife of Ali Jan, the Afghan civilian allegedly kicked off a cliff in September 2011 and executed on the orders of the famous soldier shortly after the cliff kick.
In her interview from a hotel in Kabul, wife Bibi Dhorko demanded that the Australian government hold to account the soldier who had allegedly brutalised and murdered her husband.
“He didn’t side with anyone and never had a gun,” she said. “He was living in the mountain and doing his work, only going occasionally to the village if we needed any supplies.”
Roberts-Smith, although unnamed, was also at the heart of a landmark 2016 probe into “rumours” of SAS wrongdoing in Afghanistan, commissioned by then army chief Angus Campbell and led by senior judge Paul Brereton.
Ali Jan's wife, Bibi Dhorko, said her husband was 'killed for no reason'.
When he finished his inquiry in November 2020 and published his redacted report, Brereton revealed he had uncovered credible information that about two dozen SAS soldiers committed 39 alleged executions of civilians and prisoners.
This masthead’s investigations and Brereton’s work prompted then prime minister Scott Morrison to create the OSI.
Earlier this year, the OSI was told the CDPP, had authorised the brief of evidence against Roberts-Smith.
It ruled the OSI had gathered enough evidence to prosecute Roberts-Smith for war crimes, and about a fortnight ago submitted the brief to Rowland for final approval.
On Tuesday morning, 17 years after he allegedly executed an elderly man with a prosthetic leg in an Easter Sunday operation in southern Afghanistan, and five years after the Taliban’s return to power, Roberts-Smith was handcuffed and taken to a holding cell.
He is expected to appear before a NSW local court judge later today.
Source (Archive)
Updated April 7, 2026 — 10:34am, first published 9:19am
Ben Roberts-Smith has been arrested in relation to multiple counts of murdering unarmed Afghan civilians and prisoners in what looms as the most significant war crimes prosecution in Australian history.
Roberts-Smith is expected to be charged on Tuesday with five counts of war crime - murder following a joint investigation between the Office of Special Investigator and the Australian Federal Police. The maximum penalty for the offence of war crime - murder is life imprisonment.
Ben Roberts-Smith has been arrested in relation to multiple counts of murdering unarmed Afghan civilians and prisoners.
The arrest of the decorated former special forces soldier comes after a five-year investigation secured the co-operation of SAS eyewitnesses who are expected to allege that Roberts-Smith himself executed, and directed junior soldiers to execute, at least half a dozen defenceless detainees during his time in Afghanistan between 2006 and 2012.
The 47-year-old was arrested at Sydney Airport after arriving on a flight from Brisbane on Tuesday morning. AFP officers were seen waiting at the arrivals gate for QF515 when it arrived just after 11am.
Addressing a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese refused to answer repeated questioning on Roberts-Smith’s arrest.
“I have no intention of commenting on a matter that’s clearly before the courts,” Albanese said, later adding that his commentary may prejudice the case.
Ben Roberts-Smith is arrested at Sydney Airport on Tuesday morning.Nine
“I’m not going to confirm anything to do with the legal matter. That is a matter that is very important, that there not be political engagement in what is a matter that is now the subject of legal proceedings.”
The investigation into Roberts-Smith focused on claims, strongly disputed by him, involving allegations he:
- kicked an Afghan civilian off a cliff and directed a subordinate to execute the man in September 2011;
- executed a prisoner with a prosthetic leg during an Easter Sunday mission in southern Afghanistan in 2009 and ordered another subordinate to murder a second detainee captured in the same compound;
- and ordered a junior SAS soldier to execute an unarmed detainee in a ritual known as blooding in 2012.
The decorated war veteran has been taken into custody. Nic Walker
When Roberts-Smith allegedly ordered that 2012 execution, he was the most decorated Commonwealth soldier to serve in Afghanistan. If proved, the allegations the Victoria Cross recipient faces may mean he is stripped of his medals and jailed for life.
While only a jury can decide Roberts-Smith’s guilt, a prosecution would mark a spectacular fall from grace of a one-time war hero fiercely backed by politicians, including former defence minister and Australian War Memorial chairman Brendan Nelson and One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, as well as billionaire Kerry Stokes.
Roberts-Smith has already unsuccessfully contested claims he committed war crimes, including murders, in a defamation case he fought all the way to the High Court . The High Court in September refused him leave to appeal a full Federal Court decision that, in turn, backed the 2023 judgment of Federal Court judge Anthony Besanko that The Age and Sydney Morning Herald had proved the allegations true to the civil standard.
Roberts-Smith, the son of a former West Australian Supreme Court judge and major general, joined the army in 1996 and became Australia’s most famous modern soldier after he was awarded the VC for his actions in a 2010 battle.
Timeline of events
2001
Australia first commits soldiers to Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks.
From left: Then prime minister John Howard, Defence Force chief Admiral Chris Barrie and defence minister Peter Reith announce the deployment of ADF personnel to Afghanistan in October 2001. Mike Bowers
2006
Ben Roberts-Smith is deployed to Afghanistan as a Special Air Service soldier in the first of six deployments ending in 2012.
Ben Roberts-Smith in Afghanistan in an image displayed at the Australian War Memorial. Dean Sewell
2009
Two Afghan men – one of them with a prosthetic leg – are made prisoners after an assault on a compound dubbed Whiskey 108 in April 2009. Roberts-Smith kills one of the men and directs a “rookie” soldier to kill the second as a form of initiation known as a “blooding”.
Roberts-Smith grins as the killed man's prosthetic leg is used as a drinking vessel at the SAS base in Afghanistan. Supplied
2010
At the battle of Tizak in Afghanistan, Roberts-Smith showed conspicuous heroism under heavy fire.
2011
Roberts-Smith receives the Victoria Cross in January for his part in the battle in Tizak.
Then governor-general Quentin Bryce awards Roberts-Smith the Victoria Cross. ADF
2012
Afghan National Army sergeant Hekmatullah kills three unarmed Australian soldiers at their base in August
Supplied
2012
In September, during a raid searching for Hekmatullah in Darwan village, Ben Roberts-Smith kicks Ali Jan, an unarmed and handcuffed Afghan villager, off a small cliff. He then orders two other soldiers to drag the man under a tree, where he is shot dead.
Supplied
2012
The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and The Canberra Times alleged in the defamation case brought in Roberts-Smith in 2018 that he had directed a soldier to kill an Afghan prisoner in a form of initiation in October 2012. However, the soldier who allegedly pulled the trigger, known as Person 66, refused to give evidence on grounds of self-incrimination. The newspapers dropped this allegation
2012
Roberts-Smith directs an Afghan soldier, via an interpreter, to shoot a prisoner or direct one of his subordinates to do it in October 2012 in Khas Oruzgan
2012
Roberts-Smith shoots a young Afghan prisoner in October 2012 and boasts to a fellow soldier that it was “the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen”. The defamation judge later finds the shooting allegation was not established
2016
Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force commences secret inquiry into allegations of war crimes in Afghanistan.
2018
Roberts-Smith punches a woman with whom he was having an extra-marital affair in the eye after she falls on some stairs following a function in Canberra. The defamation judge later finds this allegation was not established.
June, 2018
The newspapers publish allegations of war crimes in Afghanistan involving the SAS, referring to an SAS soldier nicknamed “Leonidas”.
August, 2018
The newspapers publish an investigation naming Ben Roberts-Smith after his lawyers unsuccessfully seek an injunction to stop publication. Roberts-Smith’s lawyers launch defamation proceedings against the newspapers in the Federal Court.
October, 2018
Lawyers for the newspapers file a truth defence requiring them to prove the imputations people might draw from the reports.
2020
The defamation trial, under Justice Anthony Besanko, is delayed due to COVID-19.
2020
Inspector General of the Defence Force in November releases inquiry findings that special forces soldiers committed up to 39 murders, with 19 current or former soldiers to face criminal investigation.
April, 2021
The Age, Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes in April 2021 report that Roberts-Smith buried images — some of which suggested war crimes had been committed in Afghanistan — along with videos and classified documents in his Queensland backyard.
June, 2021
The defamation trial begins in June, 2021. The court sits for 110 days over the course of 14 months, and hears from 41 witnesses.
Roberts-Smith outside court. Brook Mitchell
July, 2022
Defamation trial concludes, with Justice Besanko reserving his decision to deliver a written judgment at a later date.
Roberts-Smith's barrister Arthur Moses, SC. Kate Geraghty
June, 2023
Defamation judge finds all but three of the imputations of wrongdoing involving Ben Roberts-Smith are proved true. For the three that are not, he finds “contextual truth” - which means Roberts-Smith’s reputation suffered no damage from these imputations because he was found to be a murderer, a bully and a war criminal. The judge finds Roberts-Smith broke the moral and legal rules of military engagement and was therefore a criminal, and that he disgraced his country and the army by his conduct in Afghanistan.
Journalists Chris Masters (left) and Nick McKenzie after the judgment. James Brickwood
July, 2023
Roberts-Smith files an appeal.
Roberts-Smith outside court during his appeal. Wolter Peeters
February, 2024
The Full Court of the Federal Court hears the appeal over 10 days in Sydney. The decision is reserved.
March, 2025
Roberts-Smith applies to reopen the appeal before the decision is handed down after a "secret recording" emerges of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald investigative reporter Nick McKenzie speaking to a witness in the defamation trial before she gave evidence for the newspapers in 2022.
May, 2025
The application to reopen the appeal is heard over two days in Sydney.
May, 2025
The Full Court of the Federal Court rejects both Roberts-Smith's appeal and the application to reopen the appeal.
Roberts Smith's appeal bid failed. Sam Mooy
September, 2025
The High Court throws out Roberts-Smith’s last-ditch bid to appeal against his defamation loss, putting an end to seven years of litigation costing tens of millions of dollars.
Roberts-Smith has exhausted all avenues of appeal. Alex Ellinghausen
April 7, 2026
Ben Roberts-Smith is arrested over multiple war crimes.
Nine News Ben Roberts-Smith is arrested at Sydney Airport.
He has always denied any wrongdoing and it is anticipated he would fight criminal charges.
Official sources, speaking anonymously because they are not authorised to comment, said the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) had recently contacted Attorney-General Michelle Rowland seeking authorisation for a prosecution, as required when an alleged war crimes case is deemed worthy of criminal charges.
Over the past five years, a team of experienced state and federal police detectives, recruited from various Australian homicide and other elite squads as part of the highly secretive OSI, quietly built the case against Roberts-Smith.
The OSI was created in early 2021 to investigate the involvement of the SAS regiment in Afghan War crimes.
According to confidential sources, OSI detectives have tapped phones in Australia and offshore, planted listening devices, conducted raids and, most significantly, convinced SASR soldiers who had allegedly witnessed or were implicated in Roberts-Smith’s war crimes to become prosecution witnesses.
The case against Roberts-Smith is sprawling, but not circumstantial: its foundation is in the witness accounts of decorated SAS soldiers and Afghan War veterans.
Told of the looming charges, one SAS eyewitness told this masthead that he and other veterans had decided to assist the OSI because no Australian soldier was above the law, no matter how grim the fallout.
“Well, it’s all about the truth, and I think, honour. And we lost men in Afghanistan, like regular army fellas and the commandos. And how do you honour them? By telling the truth,” he said, speaking anonymously due to confidentiality requirements.
He alleged the war crime he had witnessed involved a defenceless detainee and occurred “after the dust has settled”.
“There’s no fog of war, there’s no bullets flying around … this was completely contrary to our mission, we weren’t there to kill civilians or people who didn’t deserve to die.”
Some of the witness accounts have been aired in the unsuccessful civil defamation action that Roberts-Smith launched in 2018 against this masthead. Their testimony was pivotal to the determination of the Federal Court, upheld by the Full Court of the Federal Court, that Roberts-Smith had murdered unarmed detainees and civilians.
Summary of the decision
The newspapers argued these claims were substantially true. Did the judge find the imputations were true?
Note: Where Justice Besanko found the newspapers had not established the truth of the imputation, he found “contextual truth”, which means Roberts-Smith’s reputation suffered no damage from these imputations, because he has been found to be a murderer, bully and war criminal.
The three senior Full Court judges ruled Roberts-Smith a war criminal to the civil “balance of probabilities” standard. Ruling on the alleged execution of a man with a prosthetic leg, they said: “The problem for [Roberts-Smith] is that, unlike most homicides, there were three eyewitnesses to this murder.”
Roberts-Smith applied for leave to appeal to the High Court. The court refused his application.
The impending criminal charges mark the latest chapter of an extraordinary saga that began when The Age and Sydney Morning Herald began a major investigation into Roberts-Smith in late 2017.
The investigation unearthed many of the alleged war crimes later probed by the OSI. These were detailed in dozens of articles published between 2018 and 2023.
Ben Roberts-Smith sued
Federal Court Justice Anthony Besanko will need to answer the key questions shown below the clippings.
In 2019, this masthead and 60 Minutes interviewed two serving SAS whistleblowers and travelled to Afghanistan to interview the wife of Ali Jan, the Afghan civilian allegedly kicked off a cliff in September 2011 and executed on the orders of the famous soldier shortly after the cliff kick.
In her interview from a hotel in Kabul, wife Bibi Dhorko demanded that the Australian government hold to account the soldier who had allegedly brutalised and murdered her husband.
“He didn’t side with anyone and never had a gun,” she said. “He was living in the mountain and doing his work, only going occasionally to the village if we needed any supplies.”
Roberts-Smith, although unnamed, was also at the heart of a landmark 2016 probe into “rumours” of SAS wrongdoing in Afghanistan, commissioned by then army chief Angus Campbell and led by senior judge Paul Brereton.
Ali Jan's wife, Bibi Dhorko, said her husband was 'killed for no reason'.
When he finished his inquiry in November 2020 and published his redacted report, Brereton revealed he had uncovered credible information that about two dozen SAS soldiers committed 39 alleged executions of civilians and prisoners.
This masthead’s investigations and Brereton’s work prompted then prime minister Scott Morrison to create the OSI.
Earlier this year, the OSI was told the CDPP, had authorised the brief of evidence against Roberts-Smith.
It ruled the OSI had gathered enough evidence to prosecute Roberts-Smith for war crimes, and about a fortnight ago submitted the brief to Rowland for final approval.
On Tuesday morning, 17 years after he allegedly executed an elderly man with a prosthetic leg in an Easter Sunday operation in southern Afghanistan, and five years after the Taliban’s return to power, Roberts-Smith was handcuffed and taken to a holding cell.
He is expected to appear before a NSW local court judge later today.
Source (Archive)
