Updated: 5.11pm
Far-right Senator Pauline Hanson has leapt to the defence of Ben Roberts-Smith, who was arrested today over alleged war crimes and is to face five charges of murder.
Hanson posted to social media that she remained “steadfast” in support of the former soldier, alleged to have murdered unarmed Afghan civilians and prisoners.
“I remain steadfast in my support of Ben Roberts-Smith despite news of his arrest today,” Hanson posted to Twitter/X this afternoon.
Roberts-Smith, 47, was arrested at Sydney Airport this morning, after arriving on a flight from Brisbane just after 11am.
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett said a 47 year-old-man had been arrested in connection to alleged war crimes, but did not refer to Roberts-Smith by name, as it was not protocol to do so.
“It will be alleged the man was a member of the ADF when he was involved in the death of Afghan nationals between 2009 and 2012 in circumstances that constitute war crimes under the Commonwealth Criminal Code,” Commissioner Barrett said.
Hanson said Roberts-Smith needed “the Australian people’s support”.
“Ben, his immediate and broader defence family need the Australian people’s support right now and I will not abandon him like so many other politicians,” she posted to social media.
“Ben was disgracefully arrested in front of his twin 15-year-old girls.”
Hanson, whose populist One Nation party is soaring in the polls, has been a high-profile supporter of Roberts-Smith, along with billionaire Kerry Stokes, the former long-time owner of Seven West Media.
Roberts-Smith, a Victoria Cross recipient, is Australia’s most decorated living soldier.
His arrest follows a joint investigation by the Australian Federal Police and the Office of the Special Investigator (OSI).
Commissioner Barrett this afternoon confirmed the arrest of a 47 year-old-man in connected to alleged war crimes, but did not refer to Roberts-Smith by name, as it was not protocol to do so.
“It will be alleged the man was a member of the ADF when he was involved in the death of Afghan nationals between 2009 and 2012 in circumstances that constitute war crimes under the Commonwealth Criminal Code,” Commissioner Barrett said.
“The offence of War Crime – Murder carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment”.
“It will be alleged the victims were not taking part in hostilities at the time of their alleged murder in Afghanistan,” she said.
“It will be alleged the victims were not taking part in hostilities at the time of their alleged murder” — Commissioner Barrett
Commissioner Barrett said it will be alleged the victims were “detained, unarmed” and “under the control of ADF members” when they were killed.
“It will be alleged the victims were shot by the accused, or shot by subordinate members of the ADF, in the presence of, and acting on the orders of, the accused,” she said.
The AFP did not say whether Roberts-Smith had been travelling with any one else, or if he been preparing to fly overseas, at the time of his arrest.
“It will be alleged the victims were shot by the accused, or shot by subordinate members of the ADF” — Commissioner Barrett
It had been a “complex investigation” that had been “undertaken thoroughly and meticulously,” Commissioner Barrett said.
OSI director of investigations Ross Barnett said investigations remained ongoing.
He said Roberts-Smith’s case was one of 53 war crimes allegations the OSI had investigated since 2021.
Of those, 39 had been “provisionally finalised”, unless new evidenced emerged.
“Those 39 matters have also been comprehensively investigated to the same high standard as today’s charges, but we have not gathered sufficient evidence to meet the threshold for the referral of a brief of evidence to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions,” Barnett said.
Other investigations remained ongoing.
“The investigation has been ongoing since 2021 and there’s a lot of pieces of information that have formulated that investigation,” Commissioner Barrett said.
“I encourage those who have relevant information to come forward to the OSI if they have not yet done so”.
“I encourage those who have relevant information to come forward to the OSI if they have not yet done so” – AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett
Ben Roberts-Smith outside the Federal Court of Australia in Sydney last year. Picture: Bianca De Marchi/AAP
Police would not say whether they would oppose any application by Roberts-Smith for bail.
Roberts-Smith has long denied the allegations.
Following a defamation battle, after Roberts-Smith sued Nine Entertainment newspapers, a court found the that, on the balance of probabilities, the allegations that he was responsible for, or complicit in, the deaths of four detainees in Afghanistan were substantially true.
The matter was a civil case and there have been no criminal findings against Roberts-Smith.
Roberts-Smith appealed the civil finding but the case was dismissed in May last year when the Full Court of the Federal Court upheld the earlier findings.
In September the High Court declined to hear his case, ending his avenues for appeal in the civil matter.
Ross Barnett, Office of Special Investigations. Source: LinkedIn
Barnett defended the length of time the matters had taken, describing them as “extremely complex matters to investigate”.
“Unlike a conventional investigation that’s conducted in Australia, the OSI has been tasked with investigating literally dozens of murders alleged to have been committed in the middle of a war zone in a country 9,000 kilometres from Australia that we can no longer access,” he said.
“So the challenge for investigators is that because we can’t go to that country, we don’t have access to the crime scene.
“We don’t have access to the crime scene” — Ross Barnett
“We don’t have photographs, site plans, measurements, the recovery of projectiles, blood spanner analysis, all of those things we would normally get at a crime scene.
“There’s no recovery of projectiles to link to weapons that might have been carried by members of the ADF,” Barnett said.
There were “a lot of practical challenges”.
“Often we have to start our investigation only with one or two photographs on the battlefield and some contemporary ADF reporting and potentially some third-party eyewitness testimony about what’s alleged to have occurred,” Barnett said.
“We remain committed to completing the remaining investigations as expeditiously as possible”.
