An SAS soldier has backed Ben Roberts-Smith’s version of an Afghan man’s death during an SAS mission in Darwan in 2012, telling the federal court that a man shot dead during the operation was an insurgent spotter who was a threat to Australian troops and legitimately killed.
Roberts-Smith and his former comrade, Person 11, are accused by three newspapers as part of their defence of Roberts-Smith’s defamation claim against them of a “joint criminal enterprise” in the murder of an Afghan farmer named Ali Jan, who the newspapers allege was handcuffed before being kicked off a cliff by Roberts-Smith and then shot dead by either or both of Roberts-Smith and Person 11.
