Global Courant 2023-06-01 05:31:49
A judge in Australia will announce his judgement on Thursday afternoon in a libel suit brought by Ben Roberts-Smith, the most decorated living soldier in the country.
Anthony Besanko will begin to pronounce his decision in Sydney Federal Court at 2.15pm (04.15 GMT) after Roberts-Smith sued three newspapers for defamation in the wake of a series of reports in 2018 accusing him of war crimes.
The case grounded Australia through 110 days of hearings delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic and ended with closing arguments in July 2022.
The proceedings involved more than 40 witnesses and were estimated to cost a whopping AUD 25 million ($16.3 million).
Here’s what you need to know.
Who is Ben Robert Smith?
Born in Perth, Western Australia in 1978, Ben Roberts-Smith enlisted in the Australian Army at the age of 18, later completing two tours of East Timor.
He joined the elite Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) in 2003.
Deploying to Afghanistan on multiple occasions between 2006 and 2012, Roberts-Smith was awarded the Victoria Cross, Australia’s highest award, for “most conspicuous gallantry in action in extremely hazardous conditions” during a 2010 mission to end a senior Taliban to locate the commander.
Roberts-Smith, who is divorced with two teenage daughters, left the army 10 years ago and studied business administration. He later joined the Seven Network media group and became a motivational speaker.
Seven made an initial loan to help fund the legal action, taking on rival media group Nine, which owns the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald.
The former soldier “sat masked and illegible” at the back of the court during the hearings, the Sydney Morning Herald reported as the case closed.
British newspaper The Guardian said Roberts-Smith sat in the same chair at every hearing with the attitude of an “unmoved observer”, even as witnesses – including dozens of serving and former soldiers and Afghan civilians – gave detailed testimonies of his alleged brutality. .
Why did he sue for libel?
The Sydney Morning Herald, the Age and the Canberra Times newspapers published articles in 2018 about the alleged killing of Afghan civilians by members of Australia’s special forces while deployed to the country between 2009 and 2012.
The publications not only accused Roberts-Smith of complicity in the murder of six Afghans, but also alleged that he bullied fellow soldiers and beat his former lover.
In bringing the case, Roberts-Smith said the articles damaged his reputation because they suggested he had “breached the moral and legal rules of military involvement” and portrayed him as a criminal.
He said they also suggested he had “disgraced his country and the Australian military”.
Ben Roberts-Smith meets Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II shortly after receiving the Victoria Cross (File: Anthony Devlin/Pool via AP Photo)
Roberts-Smith denied the allegations, saying he was “seriously hurt” by the publication of the articles and demanded increased damages and costs.
He did not give a figure for the amount he was seeking.
Australia’s defamation laws have recently been amended to control the amount of possible payouts, but the Roberts-Smith case is being fought under an earlier law that allows unlimited damages.
How did a war crimes defamation trial turn out?
The Sydney Morning Herald and the Age both opted for the ‘truth defense’, meaning they had to prove to the court that the allegations they published about the soldier’s behavior were true – on the basis of probability. The burden of proof in civil court is lower than in criminal cases.
“Because the main defense here is the truth, the trial has become a de facto war crimes trial,” David Rolph, a law professor at the University of Sydney who specializes in media law, told Reuters news agency.
In their initial filings, the publications cited the Geneva Conventions on the Treatment of Prisoners of War and on the Protection of Civilians in War, noting that Australia was a party to the conventions.
In one of the most harrowing allegations, witnesses told the court how in 2012 a handcuffed Afghan man was killed in the village of Darwan after Roberts-Smith kicked him off a cliff and then ordered two other soldiers to shoot him.
Roberts-Smith and another soldier gave evidence that the murder was lawful because the man was working as a scout for the enemy.
The defense has argued that soldiers testifying against Roberts-Smith were gossip motivated by greed and jealousy.
Thursday’s verdict comes amid growing attention to the actions of the Australian military.
The groundbreaking Brereton report, released in 2020 in a highly redacted form, found there was “credible evidence” that members of the special forces had unlawfully killed 39 people while deployed to Afghanistan.
No soldiers were named in the report, but it recommended that 19 current or former members of the special forces be investigated by police over 23 incidents where “prisoners, farmers or civilians” were killed between 2009 and 2013.
An Office of the Special Investigator (OSI) was set up and in March charged a 41-year-old former soldier with murder over the death of an Afghan man.
The OSI did not name the man, but Australia’s public broadcaster ABC identified him as Oliver Schulz, a decorated former special forces soldier, who was shown on an investigative broadcast in March 2020 shooting an Afghan man lying on the ground.
He is the first serving or former member of the Australian Army to be charged with war crimes and faces a life sentence if found guilty.
