Ben Roberts-Smith: Spartan tattoo reference kick-started failed defamation case

Ben Roberts-Smith claims he was linked to war crimes allegations published in multiple newspapers, even though he was not named due to a distinctive Spartan tattoo, his towering stature and Victoria Cross glory.

The 44-year-old said all the features pointed to him being the accused soldier known only as “Leonidas.”

During his final moments of questioning by his own legal team during his mammoth trial, Mr Roberts-Smith told the court about the damage the ‘whisper campaign’ had done to his mental health, career and family.

Justice Anthony Besanko found that some of the war crimes and murder allegations put forward in six articles from The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Canberra Times were essentially true when he delivered his verdict on Thursday.

Judge Besanko officially dismissed the proceedings after finding that the articles turned out to be the most serious allegations, while the newspapers defended the contextual truth for the rest of the untrue allegations.

Roberts-Smith is depicted with another soldier drinking from the prosthetic leg as a souvenir of an Afghan shot dead at a Taliban compound called Whiskey 108

Justice Besanko found that allegations of threats and domestic violence could not be proven, but was “satisfied” that the contextual truth had been defended regarding these untrue allegations.

Although not every murder charge was confirmed by the newspapers, the judge determined that the two main murders had taken place.

Mr Roberts-Smith strongly denied the allegations, but the broadcaster successfully defended those parts of the articles as true.

The first article, from June 2018, did not mention Mr Roberts-Smith’s name, but said that a soldier named ‘Leonidas’ kicked a prisoner off a cliff and had him executed.

“They make specific comments about the individual’s size, stature and his ties to high levels of the military, which would only come with the Victoria Cross,” Mr Roberts-Smith told the court.

The court heard Mr Roberts-Smith had several tattoos, including one of a Spartan helmet on his ribs.

Leonidas was a Spartan warrior who kicked a prisoner off a cliff in the movie 300.

Mr Roberts-Smith said calls quickly came in from people who believed he was the alleged war criminal in the articles, because of the description of the man in question.

At the trial, he told the court that he always followed the rules of engagement when killing people in combat.

“I’ve seen things in Afghanistan and done things in Afghanistan — like having to involve adolescents — that I’m not proud of,” he said.

“I live with that.”

Mr Roberts-Smith said he saw the Taliban and allies in the Afghan partner force mistreat women and children. But he was powerless to intervene because of the rules of engagement.

“I accept that as a trauma that I live with, only to come home to have stories written about me that are so demonstrably false,” he said.

Roberts-Smith, Australia’s most decorated soldier, lost his defamation case against nine newspapers

“I’ve had moments in my life over the last three years where I didn’t think it was worth it,” he said with tears in his eyes.

When Mr Roberts-Smith was awarded the Victoria Cross for storming machine gun nests, he said, a patrol commander wrote a letter warning he was going to be “a big poppy” and to prepare for people trying to take him down.

Years later, those attacks took the form of a “whispering campaign,” he told the court, between his enemies in the Australian Defense Force and Nine’s journalists.

He said he asked his ex-wife’s boyfriend to buy him prepaid phones so he could talk to other former soldiers he still trusted about the missions at the center of the war crimes allegations.

“I just didn’t trust the media not to try to intercept my communications or collect derogatory information to use against me,” he said.

Mr Roberts-Smith said he and trusted soldiers viewed mission surveillance footage sent to him anonymously in the form of USBs.

He denied Nine’s claim that he had buried USBs containing important evidence in a dumpster in his backyard.

He told the court that they had remained in his marital home and his wife had access to it after they separated and he moved out.

Mr Roberts-Smith said he lost three years of his life to rumors and felt he could not protect his children when the articles appeared.

“Every day I think about what people are going to do and say to my children,” he told the court during the trial.

“Now what is my family’s legacy from those articles? It crushes my soul because I gave so much for that job. And it’s all lies.’

He said he did not know what people thought of him as the allegations that he had physically assaulted his girlfriend in a Canberra hotel had been published by Nine.

“Now I’m walking down the street,” he said, pausing to calm down.

“People will look at me and the first thing I think about is ‘they think I hit a woman’.”

Mr Roberts-Smith said he was ‘betrayed and humiliated’ by the allegations.

“And I say humbled, because all I ever cared about was serving my country with honor and honor—and my friends and my unit.”

Mr Roberts-Smith did not appear in court for the verdict in person, but was reportedly seen soaking up the sun in Bali.

Out of court, one of the men who wrote the articles, Nick McKenzie, described Mr Roberts-Smith as the “Lance Armstrong” of the defence.

Ben Roberts-Smith relaxes by the pool at a resort in Bali on Wednesday. The decorated soldier finally heard the outcome of his defamation action against Nine newspapers on Thursday

The investigative journalist said the decision would provide some relief to victims in Afghanistan who also gave evidence.

“Ali Jan was a father, a husband,” he said. “He was kicked off a cliff by Ben Roberts-Smith and killed with his participation.

“There is some justice for him (and) for all the Afghan villagers who stood up in court.”

Journalist Chris Masters, who also wrote the articles, said the outcome was a great relief to the media.

“It’s a relief for the media, frankly we know we’re on our knees so much,” he said.

“It often feels so hard to do regular work, let alone one as hard as this.”