Ben Roberts-Smith told other soldiers to lie about him kicking an unarmed, handcuffed Afghan man off a cliff, and “directed” them to say the man was a legitimate target discovered hiding in a cornfield, the federal court has heard.
Person 4, a former SAS soldier, is giving evidence in Roberts-Smith’s defamation trial in Sydney. He has previously told the court he saw Roberts-Smith kick the handcuffed man – who was being held at the shoulder by another Australian soldier at the edge of a steep incline – in the chest, “catapulting him” off the cliff. “I saw the individual smash his face on a rock, and I saw the teeth explode out of his face,” he told the court.
