Roberts-Smith appeals for chance to move home
Decorated former SAS soldier Ben Roberts-Smith will apply to a court to move home and be with his family while he fights allegations of war crimes.
The 47-year-old was arrested in April and charged with murdering or ordering the murders of five unarmed detainees while deployed in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012.
Ben Roberts-Smith will apply to a court to move home and be with his family while he fights allegations of war crimes. Chris Hyde
He appeared before Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court today, when his lawyers applied to vary his bail.
“Today is just about being able to see my [family] and moving back to where we actually live,” he told reporters outside court.
“That’s what we’re focused on today.”
The Victoria Cross recipient is also expected to ask the court if he can attend two formal military ceremonies and a social function afterwards.
Prosecutor Simon Buchen SC said he would not oppose the 47-year-old moving home or attending the ceremonies as long as he did not talk to witnesses in the war crimes case.
But he told Judge Susan Horan he would oppose the SAS soldier attending the social function.
The Victoria Cross recipient was arrested in April before being charged with multiple war crimes. A Current Affair
The judge oversaw the matter this afternoon.
Roberts-Smith has not entered pleas to any of the charges but has said he will use the upcoming trial to clear his name.
He was released on bail in April after his father, Len Roberts-Smith, a former Western Australia Supreme Court judge, paid a $250,000 surety.
Australia’s most decorated living soldier is accused of machine-gunning Afghan prisoner Mohammed Essa and ordering the execution of his son Ahmadullah to “blood the rookie” during a raid at a compound in April 2009.
The then-SAS soldier allegedly placed firearms on the bodies to falsely claim they were enemy combatants, court documents said.
In August 2012, at the village of Darwan, Roberts-Smith is accused of kicking a handcuffed man named Ali Jan off a 10-metre cliff before ordering that he be dragged to a creek bed and shot.
Two months later, at Syahchow, he allegedly lined up two prisoners in a corn field before shooting one of them with another soldier.
He ordered a subordinate to shoot the other prisoner before throwing a grenade on the bodies to cover up what he had done, prosecutors allege.
AAP
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