SYDNEY, April 7 (Reuters) – Australia’s most decorated living soldier has been arrested over five counts of the war crime of murder while on deployment in Afghanistan, local media reported on Tuesday.
The man, whom police identified as a 47-year-old former Australian Defence Force member and media named as Ben Roberts-Smith, was arrested at Sydney Airport on Tuesday morning.
He will be charged with five counts of war crimes in connection to the murder of five people in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012, Australian Federal Police said. The maximum penalty for each charge is life imprisonment.
Roberts-Smith was hailed as a national hero after being awarded several top military honours, including the Victoria Cross, for his actions during six tours of Afghanistan from 2006 to 2012.
He has consistently denied allegations of wrongdoing during his service, some of which were first reported by Nine Entertainment newspapers in a series of articles starting in 2018.
Among the accusations reported were that Roberts-Smith had shot dead an unarmed Afghan teenager and kicked a handcuffed man off a cliff before ordering him to be shot dead.
Roberts-Smith unsuccessfully challenged the reports in what became Australia’s most expensive defamation trial, with a Federal Court judge ruling in 2023 the newspapers proved four of the six murder accusations they levelled. A final appeal bid was dismissed by the High Court in September 2025.
A 2020 report found credible evidence that members of Australia’s Special Air Service Regiment (SAS) killed dozens of unarmed prisoners in the lengthy Afghan war.
An investigation into the SAS soldier by the AFP and the Office of the Special Investigator, set up to examine allegations of war crimes by Australian defence forces in Afghanistan, was opened in 2021.
Police said the accused man would appear before a local court in the state of New South Wales later on Tuesday.
Roberts-Smith’s lawyer for his defamation trial did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Christine Chen in Sydney; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
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