Blistering speech in soldier’s trial
BEN Roberts-Smith’s defamation trial is winding down, with his lawyers accusing Nine newspapers of a “sustained campaign” to falsely smear the Victoria Cross recipient as a war criminal, bully and domestic abuser with unfounded articles and a contorted case.
But the newspapers have claimed, in their final address, that Mr Roberts-Smith and his mates “calculated” and lied to hide the truth about brutal killings by the SAS.
After more than 100 days of evidence, legal teams for Mr Roberts-Smith and Nine have begun summarising their cases to Federal Court Judge Anthony
Besanko. One of Mr Roberts-Smith’s barristers, Arthur Moses SC, began his closing address with a blistering denouncement of Nine’s conduct, claiming the newspapers had refused to back down from errors in their stories, even in the face of contradictory evidence, and instead used the court to launch more unfounded allegations.
Nine’s barrister, Nicholas Owens SC, said it was no coincidence his witnesses gave sworn evidence that pointed to Mr Roberts-Smith’s guilt, particularly on a mission from 2009 known as Whiskey 108.
Nine claims the SAS found two Afghans hiding in a tunnel and detained them before Mr
Roberts-Smith executed one and forced a junior soldier to execute the other. The SAS soldiers, on the ground at Whiskey 108, have given contradictory evidence about the raid. Some claimed they saw the killings; others claimed the tunnel was empty so there could be no executions.
Mr Owens claimed Mr Roberts-Smith’s witnesses were all close mates who spent years cooking up a story “calculated to deny the presence” of Nine’s key witnesses.
“Each witness has a motive to lie,” Mr Owens said.
But Mr Moses said even when the evidence came up short, Nine refused to withdraw the allegations.