In 2018, after the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Canberra Times published a series of stories alleging Ben Roberts-Smith committed murder and other crimes, he sued the three newspapers for defamation.
Roberts-Smith alleged the stories falsely portrayed him as a criminal who “broke the moral and legal rules of military engagement” and “disgraced” his country and its army. Healleged the newspapers made 14 defamatory imputations against him, including that he “murdered an unarmed and defenceless Afghan civilian, by kicking him off a cliff and procuring the soldiers under his command to shoot him” and “committed murder by machine gunning a man with a prosthetic leg”.
