Australian war veteran loses defamation lawsuit over Afghan killings

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01/06/2023 05:54

By Byron Kaye
       SYDNEY, June 1 (Reuters) - One of Australia's most
decorated living soldiers on Thursday lost a defamation lawsuit
against three newspapers which accused him of involvement in the
unlawful killings of six Afghans during his deployment to
Afghanistan.
    The newspapers successfully established that their reports
were true in relation to most of the defamatory imputations that
the soldier complained about, said Federal Court judge Anthony
Besanko in Sydney, ending a case which put the secretive wartime
conduct of elite SAS troops on rare public display.
    Former special forces corporal Ben Roberts-Smith, 44, had
sued the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age and the Canberra Times
for portraying him as someone who "broke the moral and legal
rules of military engagement" in Afghanistan where he served
from 2006 to 2012.
    

 (Reporting by Byron Kaye
Editing by Shri Navaratnam)
 ((byron.kaye@thomsonreuters.com; +612 9171 7541; @byronkaye;))