A SAS soldier says he overheard a panicked Ben Roberts-Smith ask another soldier what to do about a drone possibly recording the alleged execution of an Afghan prisoner.
The witness codenamed Person 18 returned to the Federal Court for a third day of evidence and was questioned by Arthur Moses SC, on behalf of Mr Roberts-Smith, about a 2009 mission to a compound dubbed Whiskey 108.
The elite soldier said he heard the "heated and panicked" conversation between Mr Roberts-Smith and another comrade known as Person Five who allegedly told him "you've just done this," underneath a surveillance drone.
"We need to find out whether (it) was still recording," Person 18 alleges Mr Roberts-Smith responded.
Person Five then contacted the troop radio and asked whether the ISR, or the Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance device, was recording during the assault, Person 18 told the court on Tuesday.
The response was that the ISR had been "pushed off before we made entry".
Mr Roberts-Smith is suing The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Canberra Times for defamation over reports claiming he committed war crimes and murders in Afghanistan between 2006 and 2012.
The former SAS corporal vehemently denies the allegations, but the publications are relying on truth as a defence.
Person 18 said the conversation took place after he cleared a tunnel with another squadmate when the pair heard a "burst of ammunition" and looked at each other.
Later while searching a slain man he recalled seeing a prosthetic leg covered in bandages that he inspected before leaving it with the body.
After that he saw the fake leg strapped to the back of another troop member, before it was used as a drinking vessel by himself "numerous times," and others.
Photographs of soldiers drinking from the leg at the SAS's unofficial bar in Afghanistan, the Fat Lady's Arms, caused controversy when they emerged in 2020.
The three newspapers the war hero is suing say the man was in fact a unarmed "person under control" thrown to the ground and executed by Mr Roberts-Smith.
Person 18 earlier told the court that days after giving evidence at a secret inquiry he received a threatening letter in the mail.
"You and others have colluded to tell lies to the media and before the inquiry," Person 18 said the letter read.
"It also stated that I had till the end of the month to change my statement, otherwise I'd go down," he said, the sign-off being "a friend of the regiment".
On Tuesday he said he only disclosed the contents to a superior he handed the letter to, but it somehow was leaked to Nine media ending up in an article days later.
He denies ever speaking to journalists.
The trial continues.
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