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Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith has declared that Anzac Day is so “sacred” that his prosecution for war crime-related murder won’t stop him attending the public commemorations on Saturday. In a move that threatens to overshadow the 111th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings, a day of solemn remembrance for Australians, Mr Roberts-Smith will front an Anzac Day event in Queensland and defy reported calls by some of his supporters to boycott the annual services and marches. This follows intervention by the doyen of Australia’s four living VC holders, Vietnam War hero Keith Payne, to back the former SAS operator’s right...

<p>Investigators are searching for an Afghan National Army soldier who shot a rocket at British soldiers in Helmand province, killing three and injuring four others early Tuesday morning, an Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman said.</p> <p>"We believe these were the actions of a lone individual who has betrayed his ISAF and Afghan comrades," a U.K. military spokesman said. "His whereabouts are currently unknown but we are making strenuous efforts to find him."</p>

Statement by Benjamin Roberts-Smith VC MG, 19th April 2026For the past 10 years, my family and I have been subject to a campaign to convince Australians that I’ve acted improperly in my service in Afghanistan.As I’ve always maintained, I categorically deny all of these allegations and while I would have preferred these charges not be brought, I will be taking this opportunity to finally clear my name.I’m proud of my service in Afghanistan.While I was there, I always acted within my values, within my training and within the rules of engagement.I’d also like to say I’m extremely proud of all...

Ben Roberts-Smith was taking his teenage daughters on a shopping day trip to Sydney when he was arrested getting off a Qantas flight and charged with war crimes. The Victoria Cross recipient had flown from Queensland to NSW with his 15-year-old twins and partner Sarah Matulin on the morning of April 7 and all four were holding return tickets to Brisbane. Roberts-Smith, who will apply for bail today in Downing Centre Local Court, had treated his girls to an Easter school holidays expedition and none of the group had checked any luggage. Federal authorities knew the 47-year-old was making the...

Ben Roberts-Smith has been granted bail pending his war crime trial, despite claims by the prosecution that the former soldier had been “on the cusp of moving overseas” and that he might try to interfere with witnesses. The decision by Judge Greg Grogin at a bail hearing in Sydney on Friday means Mr Roberts-Smith is likely to be freed from Silverwater Correctional Complex later this afternoon. Judge Greg Grogin said the court needed to be satisfied before bail could be granted, that there were exceptional circumstances which exist to justify bail. “There is a presumption of innocence in, in place...

Two of the five men Ben Roberts-Smith is accused of murdering while serving with the Special Air Service in Afghanistan have never been identified by war crimes investigators. Court documents seen by the Daily Mail show one of the Victoria Cross recipient's alleged victims is described only as 'Person Under Control 1', or alternatively 'Enemy Killed in Action 3'. Roberts-Smith is accused of murdering that Afghan male with another SAS soldier dubbed 'Person 68' at Syahchow in Uruzgan Province on October 20, 2012. Another alleged victim who is only known to authorities as 'Person Under Control 2' or 'Enemy Killed...

Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith had written to Australian Federal Police and the Office of the Special Investigator multiple times offering to hand himself in before his high-profile arrest in front of his teenage daughters at Sydney Airport this week. Veterans have reacted ­furiously to what they see as an orchestrated and deliberate attempt to humiliate Australia’s most decorated soldier to justify only the second arrest after the Office of the Special Investigator’s (OSI) six-year, $300m investigation into ­alleged war crimes. Roberts-Smith was arrested in front of media cameras on Tuesday as he arrived at Sydney Airport on a Qantas...

Former SAS soldiers warn the prolonged war crimes investigation into Ben Roberts-Smith threatens to create life or death hesitation for troops in combat situations.The father of an Australian soldier killed in Afghanistan has questioned why a dedicated team of investigators has spent six years building a case against Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith while his son’s killer remains free.It comes as former SAS soldiers warn the Office of the Special Investigator’s (OSI) prolonged investigation into alleged war crimes is causing mental health issues to military families and creating life or death issues for soldiers in combat.Hugh Poate’s son Robert was...

Australia’s most decorated living war veteran Ben Roberts-Smith quit his corporate job Friday after a civil court blamed him for unlawfully killing four Afghans, escalating calls for the tarnished national hero to be stripped of his revered Victoria Cross medal. Roberts-Smith, who retired from Australia’s elite Special Air Service Regiment a decade ago, quit his job as state manager of Seven West Media after losing a landmark defamation suit Thursday against newspapers that had accused him of an array of war crimes. The 44-year-old had taken leave since 2021 to focus on his federal court case, which has been financed...

Australian war hero Ben Roberts-Smith said he would not encourage potential recruits to join the armed forces because of the lack of support veterans receive. The former soldier believes the heads of the Australian Defence Force are putting themselves ahead of servicemen and not providing the assistance that veterans need. The 41-year-old told The Daily Telegraph he would not endorse young people going into the military without a major shakeup in leadership. 'My opinion is the Australian Defence Force needs good young Australians… but when you look at what is happening at the moment it gives me pause to think,...

Australia’s most decorated soldier Ben Roberts-Smith faces five war crimes murder charges, but a retired army Colonel and ADF legal expert claims prosecutors will struggle to secure a conviction.Prosecutors squaring up against the nation’s most decorated soldier will struggle to get a successful war crimes conviction regardless of the quality of the evidence, according to a retired colonel of the Australian Army Legal Corps.Bruce Levet, who served the Australian Army Legal Corps until 2022, told The Daily Telegraph he did not believe Victoria Cross recipient and former Special Air Service corporal Ben Roberts-Smith would be convicted of five counts of...

A retired US Navy SEAL has interrupted a live television interview about Donald Trump and the war in Iran to call for the release of Australia's most decorated soldier, who was arrested over alleged war crimes. Ben Roberts-Smith, 47, will face court on Wednesday after being charged with two counts of the war crime of murder and three counts of aiding or abetting the same charge. The maximum penalty for the charges is life imprisonment. The Victoria Cross recipient, who spent the night in custody, is accused of murdering unarmed civilians while deployed in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012, as...

Australia’s most decorated soldier has accused Nine of being “malicious”, saying the company is commercially motivated to tear him down. Ben Roberts-Smith has accused Nine of being commercially motivated and malicious when it alleged the former soldier was engaged in war crimes. Australia’s most decorated soldier has hit back at claims he handcuffed and kicked an Afghan prisoner named Ali Jan off a cliff during a military operation in Afghanistan in 2012. The prisoner was then allegedly shot dead by another soldier. “I want Australians to know that I absolutely deny these hurtful allegations,” Mr Roberts-Smith said in a statement...

One of Australia's most decorated soldiers, Ben Roberts-Smith, has been arrested and is expected to be charged with five counts of the war crime of murder.The Victoria Cross recipient was arrested at Sydney Airport's domestic terminal after a flight from Brisbane this morning.The former special forces soldier's arrest comes after a mammoth defamation trial against Nine Newspapers that in 2023 ended in a court finding that on the balance of probabilities, allegations he was responsible for, or complicit in the deaths of four detainees in Afghanistan were substantially true.There have been no findings of guilt against Mr Roberts-Smith to a...

Flight Lt. John Cruickshank was at the controls of a Royal Air Force plane on submarine patrol in July 1944 when he spotted a German U-boat steaming placidly on the surface of the Norwegian Sea. Swooping low, just 50 feet above the waves, the plane raked the submarine with gunfire, but the airplane’s depth charges failed to deploy. As Flight Lieutenant Cruickshank returned for a second run, he was now fully in the U-boat’s sights, and the submarine fired a shell that exploded inside the airplane’s fuselage. The bombardier was killed, and Flight Lieutenant Cruickshank was lacerated by shrapnel, though...

He ran into enemy fire three times to rescue a wounded comrade and help recover the body of another.Fifty-seven years after his acts of bravery in the Vietnam War, Private Richard Norden has been posthumously awarded Australia's highest military honour.An investiture ceremony was held in Rockhampton on Tuesday morning, where the Governor-General presented the Victoria Cross medal to his widow, Robynn Freeman.For family, friends and former colleagues, the day has been "a long time coming".A legacy of mateshipPrivate Norden, from Gundagai in New South Wales, was just 19 years old when his platoon came under attack during the 1968 Battle...

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has recommended the Queen posthumously award World War II hero Edward 'Teddy' Sheean a Victoria Cross. Tasmanian Sheean, an 18-year-old with less than two years at sea, was an Ordinary Seaman on the minesweeper HMAS Armidale when it came under heavy attack from Japanese aircraft off the coast of what is now Timor-Leste in 1942. Mr Morrison ordered an expert panel re-examine the case for Sheean receiving Australia's highest military honour after earlier attempts had failed to recommend he receive a Victoria Cross. Sheean is recorded as helping launch life rafts before returning to his anti-aircraft...

A search has been launched to find relatives of a soldier awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery during the Battle of Passchendaele in the First World War. Officials hope to have family members present at a ceremony to honour the bravery of Robert Shankland, which will take place in Ayr on October 26, 100 years since the heroic acts took place. Mr Shankland was born on October 10, 1887 at 6 Gordon Terrace in the South Ayrshire town and emigrated to Canada in 1911. At the outbreak of the First World War he enlisted and returned to Europe as part...

He was a boy hero who epitomised true British grit during the largest naval battle of the First World War. Now the grave of John 'Jack' Travers Cornwell has received protected status to mark the centenary of the Battle of Jutland, in which he was fatally injured after coming under fire from German ships.

A paratrooper who showed "complete disregard" for his own safety during a Taliban attack in Afghanistan has been awarded the Victoria Cross - the highest British military honour.