{"id":158226,"date":"2026-04-21T10:29:58","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T08:29:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/?p=158226"},"modified":"2026-04-21T11:01:53","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T09:01:53","slug":"roberts-smiths-arrest-one-more-cautious-step-towards-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/en\/158226-roberts-smiths-arrest-one-more-cautious-step-towards-trial.html","title":{"rendered":"Roberts-Smith\u2019s arrest: one more cautious step towards trial"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Federal Police boarded a commercial flight in Sydney, on April 7, to arrest Ben Roberts-Smith, Australia\u2019s highest-profile and most-decorated former soldier. It marked a new step in a war crimes investigation that began more than five years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>The highly decorated war hero spent more than a week in prison before being released on bail, last Friday, April 17, after he was charged with war crimes charges pertaining to the alleged killing of Afghan civilians while the Australian special forces were deployed to fight the Taliban.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite the time it has taken \u2013 some of the alleged offenses were committed more than fifteen years ago \u2013 the arrest of Ben Roberts-Smith can be seen as a step towards vindication of Australia\u2019s methodical approach to accountability for military operations, in contrast to overturned convictions and stalled inquiries in the United States and United Kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br>But to date, no person has ever been convicted of war crimes in contemporary Australia, and prosecutors will have to battle to prove an unprecedented offence to an untainted jury, in a case which has captivated the country since the first media reporting on war crimes allegations almost a decade ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-the-schultz-trial-a-test\">The Schultz trial, a test<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The sensational arrest is the result of a joint investigation between the Australian Federal Police and the Office of the Special Investigator (OSI), a specialized unit formed to examine the \u201ccredible information\u201d uncovered by an independent report in 2020 that found about 20 Australian soldiers may have killed civilians and detainees in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a press conference following Roberts-Smith\u2019s arrest, OSI Director Ross Barnett said his office had commenced 53 investigations into allegations of war crimes. 39 of those had been closed without enough evidence, while 10 more remain under active investigation. One other former soldier, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/en\/114493-australia-war-crimes-afghanistan-high-stakes-first-arrest.html\">Oliver Schultz, was arrested in 2023<\/a> and charged with the murder of Afghan civilian Dad Mohammed, footage of whose shooting was broadcast by Australian media outlets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Schultz\u2019s trial is likely to begin only next year, four years after his arrest. The delay can be attributed to the complexity of gathering evidence, and a desire from prosecutors to avoid progressing the matter at the same time as Roberts-Smith pursued <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/en\/109088-war-crimes-press-freedom-battle-australia.html\">a civil defamation case<\/a> relating to accusations of war crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Professor Melanie O\u2019Brien, of the University of Western Australia, says that \u201cone of the biggest challenges is they are investigated crimes committed in Afghanistan fifteen years ago in a war zone. Investigators can\u2019t access the country, the crime scene and it is difficult to talk to many of the witnesses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Regardless of the timing, the Schultz trial will prove a crucial litmus test for prosecutors in the high-stakes and more complex Roberts-Smith case. Discounting difficulties with availability of witnesses and the passage of time, grey-area issues such as proportionality will need to be addressed and developed as a point of law during the trial. Any difficulties in the first war crime trial may also hinder the future, including in the Roberts-Smith case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Professor Don Rothwell, of the Australian National University, says that the Schultz case \u201cis the test case for how the law works, and how the procedures will be applied before the courts\u201d. \u201cIt will also test and probe the way in which foreign evidence [from Afghanistan] will be presented in a war crimes matter. There will be an enormous number of lessons learned for the Roberts-Smith prosecution and defence from how the Schultz matter proceeds\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\t<div class=\"ArticleNewsletterCTA\">\r\n\t\t<div class=\"ArticleNewsletterCTATitle\">FIND THIS ARTICLE INTERESTING?<\/div>\r\n\t\t<div class=\"ArticleNewsletterCTAText\">\r\n\t\t\t<a href=\"\/en\/newsletter\">Sign up now for our (free) newsletter<\/a> to make sure you don't miss out on other publications of this type. \t\t<\/div>\r\n\t<\/div>\r\n\t\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-further-difficulties\">Further difficulties<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The Roberts-Smith case also presents greater complexity than the Schultz case. Firstly, unlike with Schultz, there is no known footage of the alleged murders, meaning prosecutors will have to prove the charges by relying entirely on testimonies from former colleagues and Afghan witnesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are also five separate charges brought against Roberts-Smith relating to incidents between 2009 and 2012, all of which will need to be proven separately. Some of the charges involve incidents where Roberts-Smith is accused of aiding or abetting murders by subordinate soldiers, creating a further element of responsibility for prosecutors to prove.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rothwell says that this complexity means that \u201cthis trial is not going to happen soon\u201d. \u201cThe defence will be seeking every legitimate opportunity to delay the matter. In any criminal trial, proving five murders would pose incredible challenges. The fact these are novel war crimes adds another layer of difficulty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-a-jury-trial\">A jury trial<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>As war crimes are a federal offence, the option of a judge-alone trial is not available. Instead, prosecutors will have to persuade a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Given the extensive publicity and notoriety of Roberts-Smith, and the political stakes for the state, jury selection has already emerged as a potential sticking point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In criminal trials, jurors are not to conduct their own research on a matter and must ignore prior reporting or court findings relating to the accused. Roberts-Smith has already lost a civil <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/en\/117812-first-civil-ruling-confirms-australia-war-crimes-afghanistan.html\">defamation case<\/a> where he was found, on the lesser standard of the balance of probabilities, to have committed many of the acts which are likely to form part of the criminal prosecution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Four witnesses from the unsuccessful defamation have been given immunity from future prosecution in return for testifying in the criminal trial, it was revealed at Roberts-Smith\u2019s bail hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite a (civil) ruling that Roberts-Smith \u201cwas complicit in and responsible for murder\u201d, jurors and the prosecution will have to ignore the findings in this case, which was one of the longest in the history of Australia\u2019s Federal Court and involved secret hearings to protect the identities of special forces witnesses and heard witness testimony from Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While the Federal Police made a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2026-04-07\/vision-of-ben-roberts-smith-under-arrest-at-sydney-airport\/106539106\">dramatic airside arrest<\/a> there is a long road ahead to reaching a trial, let alone a conviction. The matter will now be handed to the prosecutions department, which will have the final say as to whether the evidence warrants a trial, and has the power to withdraw charges if a trial does not have realistic prospects of success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The decorated veteran faces now a lengthy period where he is forced to comply with strict bail conditions, including surrendering his passport and a prohibition on contacting soldiers he served with in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"articleLink articleLink--editorRecommanded articleLink--textInImage articleLink--textTop\" style=\"\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t<div class=\"articleLinkSurTitle\">Recommended reading<\/div>\r\n\t\t\t<a class=\"articleLinkImageLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/en\/117812-first-civil-ruling-confirms-australia-war-crimes-afghanistan.html\"><div class=\"articleLinkImageContainer \"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"540\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/Australia_Ben-Roberts-Smith_@The-VC-and-GC-association-540x360.jpg\" class=\"articleLinkImage backgroundImageTag w-100 wp-post-image\" alt=\"Ben Roberts-Smith - 3 Australian newspapers named him in allegations of war crimes in Afghanistan.\" srcset=\"\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 540px) 100vw, 540px\" \/><\/div><\/a>\r\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/en\/117812-first-civil-ruling-confirms-australia-war-crimes-afghanistan.html\" class=\"articleLinkTitle articleLinkTitle--default\">\r\n\t\t\tA first (civil) ruling confirms Australia's war crimes in Afghanistan\r\n\t\t<\/a>\r\n\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Federal Police boarded a commercial flight in Sydney, on April 7, to arrest Ben Roberts-Smith, Australia\u2019s highest-profile and most-decorated former soldier. It marked a new step in a war crimes investigation that began more than five years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":158218,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[3546,2683],"ji_location":[2571,2109],"class_list":["post-158226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-tribunals","tag-investigations","tag-war-crime","ji_location-afghanistan","ji_location-australia"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.3.1 (Yoast SEO v25.3.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Roberts-Smith\u2019s arrest: one more cautious step towards trial<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Federal Police boarded a commercial flight in Sydney, on April 7, to arrest Ben Roberts-Smith, Australia\u2019s highest-profile and most-decorated former soldier. 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It marked a new step in a war crimes investigation that began more than five years ago.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/en\/158226-roberts-smiths-arrest-one-more-cautious-step-towards-trial.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/en\/158226-roberts-smiths-arrest-one-more-cautious-step-towards-trial.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/en\/158226-roberts-smiths-arrest-one-more-cautious-step-towards-trial.html#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/Australia-Afghanistan_Ben-Roberts-Smith_@Andrew-Leeson-AFP.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/Australia-Afghanistan_Ben-Roberts-Smith_@Andrew-Leeson-AFP.jpg","width":1200,"height":800,"caption":"Former member of Australia\u2019s Special Forces Ben Roberts-Smith during a court appearance at the Federal Court in Sydney in February 2024. 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