Ben Roberts-Smith told a fellow soldier he had shot an unarmed and captive Afghan teenager in the head with a pistol, and that killing him was “the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen”, the former comrade has told the federal court.
Asked what had happened to a young man “shaking like a leaf” after being taken from a Toyota Hilux found with bomb-making equipment inside, the witness claimed Roberts-Smith replied: “I shot that cunt in the head. [Person 15] told me not to kill anyone on the last job. So I pulled out my 9mm, shot the cunt in the side of the head, blew his brains out. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Giving evidence, the army medic, anonymised in court as Person 16, identified the body of the young Afghan in several pictures shown to him in court.
The body was photographed with an AK-47 rifle. Person 16 said the young man was not carrying any weapons when he was taken captive and handcuffed.
Roberts-Smith, a recipient of Australia’s highest military honour, the Victoria Cross, is suing the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Canberra Times for defamation over a series of reports he alleges are defamatory and portray him as committing war crimes, including murder.
The newspapers are pleading a defence of truth. Roberts-Smith denies all wrongdoing.
The court has heard Person 16 and Roberts-Smith served together on an SAS rotation to Afghanistan in 2012.
In November that year, on the last operation of that rotation, SAS troops were helicoptered into Fasil, in southern Uruzgan province. Person 16 gave evidence that, manning either side of a road checkpoint, Person 16 and another soldier trained their weapons on a Toyota Hilux ute that approached and waved it to a stop.
Person 16 took into custody and handcuffed two of the four men inside the vehicle: an older man with a full beard and a younger man: “I made him out to be late teens … not a fully beard, a bit chubby, and shaking in terror.”
“He appeared extremely nervous and trembling uncontrollably.”
Neither man was armed, but, according to Person 16, the other soldier on the checkpoint reported he found components for an improvised explosive device inside the vehicle.
Both were handcuffed and taken to a nearby compound for tactical questioning. Person 16 handed both prisoners over to Roberts-Smith, he told the court. He did not see the two men again.
Person 16 said about 15 minutes after handing over the two men – described as PUCs, ‘persons under constraint’ – to Roberts-Smith, Roberts-Smith said over the troops’ radio “two EKIA”. EKIA is an initialism for “enemy killed in action”.
In the days after the mission, Person 16 said he crossed paths with Roberts-Smith in the accommodation lines at the SAS’s Camp Russell within Australia’s Tarin Kot base.
He told the court he asked Roberts-Smith: “What happened to that young fella who was shaking like a leaf?”
Roberts-Smith allegedly replied: “I shot that cunt in the head. Person 15 told me not to kill anyone on the last job. So I pulled out my 9mm, shot the cunt in the side of the head, blew his brains out. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Person 16 said he could not recall what he said in reply to Roberts-Smith “because I was shocked at what he’d said”.
He said he did not report Roberts-Smith’s actions or comments to superiors.
“Because there was a code of silence within the regiment with these things occurring, a fear of retribution. It would have been a career-ending move. I would have been ostracised. I also think that my personal safety ... I would have been in danger by making such allegations against some so influential, so I thought I’d just best keep quiet and move on with life.”
In court on Friday, Person 16 was shown pictures of a dead Afghan male who he identified as the teenager he had taken into custody and constrained.
The body was photographed with an AK-47 variant beside it.
Person 16 was asked: “Did the young Afghan that you detained from the Hilux have an AK-47 variant weapon on him?”
“No.”
In his evidence to the court last year, Roberts-Smith was asked about the alleged killing of the Afghan teenager.
He said the account was “baseless”, that he never said those words, and that the event could not have happened, because he never fired his pistol in combat while on deployment in Afghanistan.
“I never had to engage with my pistol,” he told the court.
Roberts-Smith also rejected assertions that he ever engaged in the practice of using “throw-downs”, a piece of compromising equipment, such as a radio or weapon, carried by soldiers and placed on the bodies of victims as a post-facto justification for their killing.
Roberts-Smith has maintained all of his actions in Afghanistan abided with the Australian troops’ rules of engagement, and the Geneva Conventions.
The allegation of the murder of the teenager at Fasil was first claimed in the newspapers defence as occurring on 21 October 2012. Australian War Memorial documents show that on that date, Roberts-Smith was leading a reconnaissance patrol in Char-Chineh, an action for which he would receive a commendation for distinguished service.
The date of the alleged defence has been amended in the newspapers’ defence to 5 November of the same year.
In his opening address to the court, Roberts-Smith’s barrister, Bruce McClintock, said the allegation was “beyond ridiculous … it’s insane”.
“It’s the sort of thing that would be said by an ostentatious psychopath … my client is not that.”
McClintock told the court that after the Hilux was intercepted, adults within the vehicle were detained, while the adolescent was released.
In court on Friday morning, Person 16 was asked about Roberts-Smith’s wider reputation within the SAS.
Person 16 said he knew of Roberts-Smith before he was posted to the SAS and said he had a “reputation as being a no-nonsense individual, a pretty straight, hard-hitting individual who didn’t suffer fools”.
“He had a formidable reputation.”
Person 16 said within the SAS, opinion was divided about Roberts-Smith.
“There were two camps: those for and those against. Those against saw him as someone who was belligerent, a bully, would trash and tarnish others’ reputations.”
Arthur Moses SC, acting for Roberts-Smith, asked in cross-examination whether Person 16 could confidently identify the body in the photographs he’d been shown as the teenager he had taken into custody.
“In time to reflect and ruminate on detaining this young man, the more I think about it, the more I’m confident this was the person that was in the Toyota Hilux.”
Challenged by Moses that the later barrack-room conversation with Roberts-Smith about the alleged murder was “something you have imagined”, Person 16 was resolute in his answer.
“I am 100% certain beyond any doubt that that conversation took place. That conversation 100% happened, and his reply shocked me to the core, and that’s why I remembered it.”
Person 16 sought, and was granted by the judge, a certificate under section 128 of the Evidence Act, protecting him against self-incrimination.
He told the court he had spoken with journalist Nick McKenzie in 2018 about events in Afghanistan. McKenzie already knew details of the “Hilux job”, Person 16 said.
The soldier said he did not report the meeting to his defence superiors, despite acknowledging he was obliged to by defence rules.
The trial, before Justice Anthony Besanko, continues.
