Former SAS soldier Ben Roberts-Smith has broken his silence after returning to Australia for the first time since a judge’s damning verdict against him.
Australia’s most decorated living soldier was seen on Wednesday boarding a business class flight with his girlfriend in the New Zealand resort town of Queenstown.
Hours later he landed at Perth’s airport, where TV cameras approached the Victoria Cross-holder.
Mr Roberts-Smith uttered few words, but said he was “devastated” by the verdict in his long-running defamation trial against Nine newspapers, adding that it was a “terrible outcome and the incorrect outcome”.
Mr Roberts-Smith was adamant he would not apologise.
“We haven’t done anything wrong so won’t be … making any apologies,” he said.
When asked if he was proud of how he had behaved when serving Australia he responded: “Of course.”
It was the first time Mr Roberts-Smith had been seen in public since losing his defamation case over war crimes.
Earlier this month, Justice Anthony Besanko dismissed his cases against The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Canberra Times and three journalists over their reports about him published in 2018.
Mr Roberts-Smith sued the newspapers and journalists over stories that alleged he killed Afghan civilians, bullied colleagues and committed domestic violence.
The Victoria Cross recipient denied the allegations and said he’d been defamed.
Mr Roberts-Smith was nowhere to be seen when the judge handed down his decision. A day earlier, he was photographed poolside in Bali.
His return to home soil coincided with reports that the Australian Federal Police has abandoned two criminal investigations into alleged murders involving the veteran in Afghanistan.
The dumped investigations will be replaced by Operation Emerald – a new joint taskforce of the Office of the Special Investigator and AFP investigators.
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Judgment in Ben Roberts-Smith case
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‘Cold, hard truth’
Meanwhile, former SAS captain and Liberal MP Andrew Hastie said Justice Besanko had validated the “cold, hard truth” that had burdened SAS officers for years.
Mr Hastie told the ABC the courage of former colleagues in giving evidence against Mr Roberts-Smith had “rescued” the elite regiment.
“They’ve shown moral courage. They’ve been brave,” Mr Hastie told the ABC.
“They’ve not won anything out of this. It’s been very tough for them.
“I honour their work, because it’s they who have demonstrated that the regiment has a moral pulse, that the regiment can self-correct.
“It’s they who have repudiated the toxic culture and behaviour.”
Mr Hastie told the ABC the former and current SAS officers who gave evidence against Mr Roberts-Smith were “some of the hardest and toughest characters I met at SASR”.
“They’ve seen a lot of combat. They fight tough, but they fight fair. They are people who are larger-than-life characters.
“Two of them were my combat dive instructors. So I spent long hours underwater at a depth of four to six metres by night in sharky waters, diving with them where a mistake can cost your life.
“For some of them, I know them very well. I’ve had to trust my life in to them and they to mine as dive buddies.”
Mr Hastie said he had been aware of “whispers” about Mr Roberts-Smith for some time that had since been proven in the Federal Court.
Justice Besanko was scathing of the former SAS corporal in his full judgment, saying Mr Roberts-Smith was “not an honest and reliable witness”, and that he lied about his involvement in war crimes to gain financially.
The ex-soldier sent threatening letters to witnesses who ultimately gave evidence against him at the defamation trial, after hiring private investigators to find their addresses.
“The sending of the letters may constitute a criminal offence of attempting to pervert the course of justice … or using a postal or similar service to menace, harass or cause offence,” Justice Besanko said.
Mr Roberts-Smith used burner phones and encrypted apps, and buried USB sticks in a lunchbox in his ex-wife’s backyard once he knew he was an important subject of an investigation by the Inspector General of the Australian Defence Force.
The activity to hide his tracks came as the media reported truthfully on war crimes committed while Mr Roberts-Smith was deployed in Afghanistan.
-with AAP
