The best soldier loses the call of war crimes defaming

The most organized Australian soldier Ben Roberts Smith lost an appeal against a prominent defamation rule that he had been found to have committed war crimes.

A judge spent in 2023 that the news articles claiming that the recipient in Victoria Kroos had killed four non -armed Afghans, but Mr. Roberts Smith argued that the judge had made legal errors.

The civil trial was the first time in the history that any court evaluates allegations of war crimes by the Australian forces.

A committee of three judges from the Federal Court supported Friday unanimously the original ruling, although Mr. Roberts Smith said he would appeal the decision of the Supreme Court in Australia “immediately.”

He said in a statement, “I still maintain my innocence and reject these terrible hatred allegations,” he said in a statement.

Mr. Roberts Smith, who left the defense force in 2013, was not charged with any of the claims in a criminal court, where there is a higher burden of proof.

The former Special Forces Company filed a lawsuit against three Australian newspapers on a series of articles that claim serious misconduct during its publication in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012 as part of a US -led military alliance.

As the articles were published in 2018, Mr. Roberts Smith was a national hero, with the highest military honor in Australia for single Taliban fighters alone who attacked the SAS Air service (SAS).

The 46 -year -old has argued that alleged killings occurred legally during the fighting or never, claiming that the papers destroyed his life with their reports.

The defamation case – which some called the “trial of the century” in Australia – continued over 120 days, and has now been rumored that it cost up to 35 million dollars ($ 22.5 million; 16.9 million pounds).

In June 2023, Federal Court Judge Anthony Bisanco threw the case against the afternoon, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Canberra Times, which was “largely correct” that Mr. Roberts Smith had killed Afghan prisoners, unarmed civilians and colleagues.

It was also found that Mr. Roberts Smith lied to cover up his misconduct and threatened witnesses.

Additional allegations that he had made his girlfriend, threatened a counterpart, and committed crime crimes other relatives, which did not prove that the criterion of the “balance of possibilities” required in civil issues.

His lawyer Brett Walker said that the “heart” of the appeal case is that Judge Bisanco did not give adequate weight to the assumption of Mr. Roberts Smith to innocence, his lawyer Brett Walker said.

There is a legal principle that requires the judges to move forward carefully when dealing with civil issues that involve serious allegations and in achieving the results that carry severe consequences.

Mr. Walker argued that the evidence provided by newspapers was less than the required standard.

Months after the appeal case was closed, the Roberts-Smith team sought earlier this year to reopen, claiming misconduct by a correspondent at the case center.

They argued that there was a miscarriage of justice because Nick McKenzi, one of the journalists who wrote the articles in the center of the case, received illegal details about the legal strategy of Mr. Roberts Smith.

The legal team referred to a phone call that was leaked between Mr. McKenzi and the witness – the age, Sidni Morning Herald, and “Canberra Times”, who have been registered illegally.

But Friday, the trio of the rulers also rejected this argument.

“The evidence was convincing enough to support the results that the appellant killed four Afghan men.”

They added: “To the extent that we distinguished a mistake in the reasons for the basic judge, the mistakes were not important.”

They also asked Mr. Roberts Smith to pay the legal costs of the newspapers.

In a statement, Mr. McKenzi described the referee as “a certain victory.”

SAS soldiers who “fought for the Australian public for learning the truth” thanked the sheikhs, “The victims of (Mr.) Roberts Smith Afghan.

“Journalists and brave soldiers should not be left to stand in front of the war criminal,” he said. “The Australian authorities must carry Ben Roberts Smith in front of our criminal justice system.”