Australian ex-soldier Roberts-Smith granted bail in Afghan war crimes case 

Former Australian special forces soldier Ben Roberts-Smith has been granted bail after spending ten days in prison over alleged war crimes in Afghanistan.

The 47-year-old was released on Friday after a judge said he would face “years and years” in prison before his case went to trial.

Roberts-Smith, who was awarded the prestigious Victoria Cross in 2011, was detained in Sydney last week and charged with murdering five people in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012.

The former soldier denies all of the charges.

Speaking after the ex-soldier was detained, Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Krissy Barrett said that “it will be alleged the victims were not taking part in hostilities at the time of their alleged murder in Afghanistan.”

Police would also allege the victims were shot by the accused or shot by subordinates acting on his orders and in his presence, Barrett said.

Roberts-Smith appeared in a Sydney court via video link on Friday and remained unmoved as he was shown on screen in a green prison track suit.

His lawyer Slade Howell argued it was unacceptable to keep the soldier behind bars as the case slowly wound through the courts.

The prosecution in turn argued the grave nature of the alleged crimes warranted strict bail conditions.

Roberts-Smith faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment if he is found guilty.

The decorated soldier was heralded as an Australian war hero and was even honoured as the nation’s “father of the year”.

But his reputation was called into question in 2018, when a series of news reports linked him to the alleged murder of unarmed Afghan prisoners by Australian troops.

The soldier allegedly kicked an unarmed Afghan civilian off a cliff and ordered subordinates to shoot him, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

He was also said to have taken part in the machine-gunning of a man with a prosthetic limb, which he allegedly later used as a drinking vessel with other soldiers.

Roberts-Smith denied the claims and launched legal action against the newspapers involved.

But his legal efforts backfired, with a judge finding in 2023 that many of the journalists’ claims were “substantially true”.

Such civil trials carry a lower burden of proof than the criminal proceedings Roberts-Smith now faces.

Australia deployed 39,000 troops to Afghanistan over two decades as part of US and NATO-led operations against the Taliban and other militant groups.