Decorated Australian veteran loses his defamation appeal over killings in Afghanistan

Australia’s most decorated living war veteran Ben Roberts-Smith on Friday lost his appeal of a civil court ruling that blamed him for unlawfully killing four Afghans while he served in Afghanistan.

Three federal court judges unanimously rejected his appeal of a judge’s ruling in 2023 that Roberts-Smith was not defamed by newspaper articles published in 2018 that accused him of a range of war crimes.

Justice Anthony Besanko had ruled that the accusations were substantially true to a civil standard and Roberts-Smith was responsible for four of the six unlawful deaths he had been accused of.

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/decorated-australian-veteran-loses-defamation-appeal-killings-afghanistan-121861951