Australia charges former war hero with war crimes

What happened

Ben Roberts-Smith, Australia’s most decorated living veteran, was arrested on Tuesday and charged with two counts of “war crime — murder” and three counts of abetting such crimes, according to documents presented in court on Wednesday. The charges relate to the killings of five unarmed civilians while he was the patrol commander of an elite Special Air Service Regiment in Afghanistan from 2009 to 2012.

Who said what

Roberts-Smith is “only the second Australian veteran of the Afghanistan campaign to be charged with a war crime,” said The Associated Press. He has “consistently denied all wrongdoing,” said the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. But his “public image was shattered in 2018,” when several newspapers published articles accusing him of killing Afghan civilians, The New York Times said. He sued for defamation and lost. Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett said in a statement that the five Afghans at the center of the charges were unarmed, “under the control” of the Australian military and “not taking part in hostilities at the time of their alleged murder.”

What next?

Roberts-Smith’s trial could become the “most consequential military prosecution” in Australian history, said the Times. The maximum penalty for each charge is life in prison.