Soldier denies lying about Roberts-Smith evidence, despite a decade of silence
A soldier denies he is lying about seeing war hero Ben Roberts-Smith execute a man and order another execution in the space of an hour, despite staying silent for a decade.
āI have a memory and I know what I saw,ā he told the Federal Court on Thursday.
The still-serving special forces soldier, known as Person 41, is giving evidence for three newspapers defending a defamation claim by Mr Roberts-Smith, one of the countryās most decorated soldiers.
The Victoria Cross recipient and retired SAS corporal, 43, says he was unlawfully defamed by reports alleging he committed murder and war crimes in the Afghanistan War. He denies any wrongdoing.
Person 41 told the defamation trial on Wednesday that during a 2009 mission to a Taliban compound, Roberts-Smith placed an unarmed Afghan man at the feet of a rookie SAS soldier and said āshoot himā.
He also testified that Roberts-Smith āfrogmarchedā a second man out of a courtyard, threw him to the ground and shot him. The second manās prosthetic leg was later taken to the SASās base and used as a drinking vessel.
Person 41 was repeatedly challenged on Thursday about his version including his failure to speak about it until 2020.
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āWhat I want to suggest is the reason you didnāt report it, is it didnāt happen,ā Arthur Moses SC, for Mr Roberts-Smith, said.
āThatās incorrect. I know what I saw,ā Person 41 replied.
Mr Moses: āIs it the case you think you know what you saw?ā
Person 41: āI know what I saw.ā
The soldier accepted the event caused him guilt āto some extentā and shame but no feeling that he was a coward.
āI was happy to put it in the back of my memory,ā he said.
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Going along with what happened was āsort of an unwritten ruleā and he didnāt want to make waves on his first tour, he said.
But he accepted he complained about his patrolās second-in-charge to his patrol commander while in Afghanistan and filled out a form on return to Australia that had āa crackā at the SASās highest officer āfor not making logical decisionsā during the tour.
On his account, a few minutes before Roberts-Smith ordered another rookie to execute the first Afghan man in a courtyard, Person 41ās patrol commander had been yelling into a tunnel connected to the courtyard.
āYouāre lying, arenāt you?ā Moses asked.
āNo, I can recall this and Iām not lying,ā the witness said, before accepting it wasnāt standard practice to call out in English to the Taliban.
The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Canberra Times have pleaded a truth defence to Roberts-Smithās defamation lawsuit.
However, their version of the ordered execution portrays the VC recipient as an observer, not the one issuing the command.
Roberts-Smith has rubbished the execution suggestions, saying the first never occurred. The second supposed execution was, he said, his killing of an insurgent holding a bolt-action rifle.
A claim the man was ever a āperson under controlā was āso far from the truth itās not funny ā¦ itās ridiculous,ā Roberts-Smith testified in June.
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