Reuters —
Australia’s most decorated living soldier has been arrested on five counts of war crimes, including murder, while on deployment to Afghanistan, local media reported on Tuesday.
The man, identified by police as Ben Roberts-Smith, a 47-year-old former Australian Defense Force member, was arrested at Sydney Airport on Tuesday morning.
Australian Federal Police (AFP) said he will be charged with five war crimes in connection with the killing of five people in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012. The maximum penalty for each charge is life in prison.
Roberts-Smith was awarded several of the highest military decorations, including the Victoria Cross, and was hailed as a national hero for his actions during six tours in Afghanistan between 2006 and 2012.
He has consistently denied allegations of wrongdoing during his tenure, some of which were first reported by Nine Entertainment newspaper in a series of articles starting in 2018.
Among the charges reported were that Roberts-Smith shot and killed an unarmed Afghan teenager and kicked a handcuffed man off a cliff before ordering the shooting.
Mr Roberts-Smith unsuccessfully challenged the report in what became Australia’s most expensive libel trial, with a Federal Court judge ruling in 2023 that the newspaper had proven four of the six murder charges brought against it. The final appeal was dismissed by the High Court in September 2025.
A 2020 report found credible evidence that members of Australia’s Special Air Service (SAS) killed dozens of unarmed prisoners of war in the long-running Afghanistan war.
The investigation into the SAS soldier was launched in 2021 by the AFP and the Office of Special Investigations, which was established to investigate alleged war crimes by the Australian Defense Force in Afghanistan.
Police said the suspect will appear in the New South Wales District Court later on Tuesday.
Roberts-Smith’s attorney in the defamation case did not respond to a request for comment.
