Office of Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia via Wikimedia Commons
Australia’s most decorated living soldier murdered four unarmed prisoners when he served in the military in Afghanistan, a federal court judge found on Thursday.
Ben Roberts-Smith lost his historic defamation case brought against three newspapers that had accused him of committing multiple war crimes. The civil trial in Sydney ended with Justice Anthony Besanko finding, on the balance of probabilities, that four accusations of murder made against Roberts-Smith were substantially true.
They included one allegation that Roberts-Smith kicked a handcuffed farmer off a cliff in 2012. After the fall, which smashed out the victim’s teeth, Roberts-Smith allegedly ordered a subordinate to shoot the injured man dead.