Kate stuns in dazzling pearl-diamond tiara at lavish Jordan royal wedding - Daily Record

Kate Middleton looked dazzling in a diamond tiara as she and Prince William made a surprise trip to a lavish Jordan royal wedding.

The Princess of Wales wore the Lover's Knot tiara, often seen on Princess Diana, teamed with a pink, embellished gown for the evening reception at the wedding of Crown Prince Hussein of Jordan and his new wife Princess Rajwa at the Al-Husseiniya Palace in Amman, the Mirror reports.

The diamond and pearl-encrusted headpiece was made in 1914,from pearls and diamonds already in Queen Mary's possession. However, it was a copy of one owned by her grandmother, Princess Augusta of Hesse, who married the first Duke of Cambridge in 1818.

It was given to Diana by the Queen as a wedding gift in 1981, and following her death, the glistening headpiece was passed down to Kate, which is now perhaps her most favourite pieces of royal jewellery.

Kate and William joined guests from around the world at the royal event of the year with 140 guest at the Zahran Palace, including Princess Beatrice and 140 guest at the Zahran Palace.

Kate and William arriving at the ceremony. (Image: PA)

William and Kate's trip to Jordan was not announced in advance and their arrival was confirmed by Jordanian state media a few hours before the start of the palace marriage ceremony.

The pair were seen being greeted by the groom's parents King Abdullah and Queen Rania with Kate curtseying to them and they had a lengthy chat before they headed to watch Hussein, 28, who wore military uniform, marry 29-year-old Rajwa, whose bridal gown was also by Elie Saab.

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The couple wed in an Islamic marriage ceremony known as a "katb ktab" held in a gazebo in the garden of the Zahran Palace and it was conducted by the Royal Hashemite Court Imam Dr Ahmed Al Khalaileh.

The British royals were all seen greeting the newlywed couple with hugs and kisses on the cheeks. It was then announced that Rajwa had been bestowed with a HRH title and will be known as Princess Rajwa.

Hussein, 28, who is the eldest son of Abdullah and Rania, is known to have a close bond with William, who made a solo trip to Jordan in 2018.

They watched England's emphatic victory over Panama in that year's World Cup as he had missed in on his trip over. Kensington Palace later shared a picture of William watching the rerun on a huge screen alongside Hussein as they reclined on a huge grey corner sofa.

Queen Rania is a member of William's Earthshot Prize Council and Jordan is also a special place for Kate, who lived there for three years as a young child when her dad Michael Middleton was relocated there while working for British Airways.

Kate and William greet the happy couple. (Image: AP/Youtube)

In 2021, the couple took their children to Jordan for a private holiday, with a family snap at the ancient city of Petra from that getaway featuring on their Christmas card that year.

Hussein is a graduate of the UK's Sandhurst Military Academy, and Rajwa's engagement was announced last August with a ceremony to mark it taking place in the bride's home city of Riyadh.

The wedding comes after a difficult period for Jordan’s monarchy, including a public rift between the king and his half-brother, with some commentators interpreting the national celebrations as a way of shoring up public support at a time of persistent economic difficulties.

Other guests at the wedding included Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark and his Australian-born wife Crown Princess Mary as well as the heir to the Swedish throne Crown Princess Victoria and husband Prince Daniel.

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The King and Queen of the Netherlands are also there as well as the King of Belgium and his young heir Princess Elisabeth. The US is represented by its First Lady Jill Biden.

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2023-06-02 06:55:06Z
2057400190

Russia-Ukraine war live: two killed in Belgorod shelling, says Russian governor; missiles and drones shot down over Kyiv - The Guardian

From 38m ago

The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region said on Friday that two people had been killed and two others injured when Ukrainian forces shelled a road in the town of Maslova Pristan near the Ukrainian border.

“Fragments of the shells hit passing cars. Two women were travelling in one of them. They died from their injuries on the spot,” Reuters reports governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

The claims have not been independently verified.

Here are some images that have been released of Ukrainian service personnel training in Kharkiv region.

Two close allies of the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov on Thursday publicly criticised Russia’s most prominent mercenary, casting Yevgeny Prigozhin as a blogger who “screams” all the time about his problems.

Kadyrov’s right-hand man, Adam Delimkhano, in a video message using the diminutive of “Zhenya” and the familiar Russian form of you (“ty”) told Prigozhin:

“You have become a blogger who screams and shouts off to the whole world about all the problems,” Delimkhanov said. “Stop shouting, yelling and screaming.”

Magomed Daudov, the chairman of the Chechen parliament, similarly tore into Prigozhin in a video shared on telegram:

“I need to tell you, for such words, almost every day, you would have immediately been put up against the wall during World War II,” he said, accusing Prigozhin of creating a “panicked mood among the population”.

In response, Dmitry Utkin, a former Rusisan special forces officer who is believed to be Wagner’s most senior commander, said his group was ready to meet the Chechens “man to man”.

“Where did such familiarity come from: who gave you the right to use the address ‘ty’ and ‘Zhenya’?” Utkin said in a message which Prigozhin reposted on Telegram. “Certain citizens should be put against a wall for the SHAME that we have.”

Utkin, a veteran of Russia’s wars in Chechnya, added that he was acquainted with the Chechens from his time fightings against them in the Caucasus.

Both Prigozhin and Kadyrov are yet to comment on the public spat. The two men were previously believed to be allies and have bonded over their shared hatred of the Russian military leadership.

The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region said on Friday that two people had been killed and two others injured when Ukrainian forces shelled a road in the town of Maslova Pristan near the Ukrainian border.

“Fragments of the shells hit passing cars. Two women were travelling in one of them. They died from their injuries on the spot,” Reuters reports governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

The claims have not been independently verified.

Residents of Kyiv have been leaving flowers, toys and sweets at a makeshift memorial at the location where Olha Ivashko, 33, and her daughter Vika, nine, were killed yesterday.

Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, has faced criticism after allegations this week that a “locked” shelter was responsible for people in the capital being stuck outside and struck by falling debris which killed them.

He has just posted two lengthy messages about the situation on Telegram. In the first he told residents:

1.2bn hryvnias (£26m GBP) from the city budget were allocated to the districts for the arrangement of shelters. These funds, I emphasise, were and are being managed by the city’s regional government. Heads of districts are responsible.

Today, the implementation and use of funds is extremely unsatisfactory. At the end of June, we will sum up the use of funds for arranging shelters. And appeals to the president for suspension or dismissal can also be made for other heads of districts.

Klitschko said that it was up to the president to dismiss heads of district and that the mayor cannot “even reprimand him”. Klitschko said “this is about joint and fair responsibility” and he warned district heads “you can’t walk around in white gloves and neglect your duties”.

In a second message he said that shelters would be guaranteed to be open.

Round-the-clock access to shelters is mandatory for all institutions and establishments.

The public will also be involved in access control. Anyone interested can join and become public control inspectors. You need to contact the Department of Municipal Security.

The patrol police, and we are grateful for this, will help check the availability of shelters during the curfew air alert.

He continued “I want to address the residents of the capital. The enemy is now shelling the capital with ballistic missiles when the alarm can sound in a matter of minutes. If you understand that you will not reach the shelter so quickly, follow the rule of two walls in the house. The city authorities are strengthening their control over the work of shelters. Yes, there are questions. And we will work on them.”

The “rule of two walls in the house” states that the safest part of the building is considered to be a space in which there are at least two walls without windows between a person and the street.

China’s special envoy for Eurasian affairs, Li Hui, said on Friday that the Russian side appreciated China’s desire and efforts to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

“The risk of escalation of the Russia-Ukraine war is still high,” Reuters reports Li saying at a news briefing about his visit to Europe.

“All sides must ensure the safety of nuclear facilities and take concrete measures to cool down the temperature,” he said.

Here are some of the latest images to be sent to us from Ukraine over the news wires.

Mariupol’s mayoral aide Petro Andryushchenko has claimed that three people have been killed by the detonation of a landmine on the Mariupol-Donetsk H20 highway. He said the incident happened near Olenivka, the location of a prison massacre earlier in the war.

The claims have not been independently verified.

Suspilne, Ukraine's state broadcaster, offers this round up of overnight news:

In the city of Kyiv, there is no information on any injured people or destruction, while in Kyiv region, an 11-year-old boy and a 68-year-old man were injured due to falling debris. Private houses and cars were damaged.

Over the past day, two people were killed and another 12 were injured due to shelling in Donetsk region. In the Zaporizhzhia region, one person was killed and two were injured during the day, and 16 were injured in the Kherson region.

The general staff reported that the Russian military has set a deadline for residents of the temporarily occupied Kherson region to receive a Russian passport – 1 September 2023. For refusal, they threaten to stop supplying electricity, confiscate property, forcefully evict them from their homes or deport them.

The claims have not been independently verified.

An air alert has been declared in eastern Ukraine.

Two long-range drones attacked fuel and energy infrastructure in Russia’s western Smolensk region overnight on Friday, but no injuries or fires were reported, the region’s acting governor said.

Reuters reports he said the attacks hit the towns of Divasy and Peresna near the region’s capital Smolensk, about 270 km (168 miles) from the Ukrainian border, but did not say who was responsible. Smolensk region is to the north of Bryansk in Russia, and borders Belarus.

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2023-06-02 06:13:51Z
2104614929

Trump plays down legal threat of secret papers recording at Fox News town hall - The Independent

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Donald Trump returned to a familiar refrain on Thursday, insisting once again that he had done nothing wrong even as new challenges pop up seemingly every day for the ex-president who faces a bevy of criminal and civil investigations.

Mr Trump returned to Iowa for a town hall-styled event with his favoured cable network, Fox News, moderated by primetime opinion host Sean Hannity, who is now the Fox star probably closest to the former president given the firing of Tucker Carlson, the network’s previous star pundit.

And confronted with a new leaked recording indicating that Mr Trump knew that he was retaining classified materials after his presidential term ended, he once again insisted that he had done nothing wrong.

“News broke yesterday there might be a tape recording where you acknowledged that you understood that these were classified documents [at Mar-a-Lago],” the Fox News host began.

While asking also if the ex-president knew who had leaked the recording of the phone call, he questioned: “Do you know anything about this?”

“No, I don’t know anything about it,” Mr Trump responded. “All I know is this: everything I did was right. We have the Presidential Records Act, which I abided by 100 per cent.”

He then moved on to attack President Joe Biden, before claiming: “I have the right to declassify as president.”

The explanation was nothing new. Mr Trump has long claimed that any classified materials seized by investigators at Mar-a-Lago were in fact previously declassified by him during his presidency — though he has shown no evidence of an order to do so.

And notably, the nod to the Presidential Records Act was another mistruth. The law does not allow for ex-presidents to retain original copies of presidential records after their terms end without the express consent of the National Archives, an agency that the former president has roundly denounced.

Nonetheless, it was a familiar claim for the one-term president who escaped two impeachment proceedings despite bipartisan support for his removal; Mr Trump has long asserted that any investigation or civil suit filed against him is merely the work of his political foes in an attempt to block him from power.

It’s the same response he is currently utilising in response to two separate investigations into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results — one at the Justice Department, and another in Fulton County, Georgia. In the first case, he has insisted that his actions leading up to and during the January 6 attack were nothing short of presidential, and denied any responsibility for inciting the riot or failing to address it.

In the second, he has almost jokingly repeated the idea that a shocking early-January 2021 phone call between him, the top elections official in Georgia, and his legal team was “perfect” despite him being heard in an audio recording asking the official to “find” thousands of votes to close his gap with Joe Biden. That’s almost word-for-word the language he used to describe a conversation with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelesnky that led to his first impeachment trial.

His defences to the various legal challenges that have cropped up since the end of his presidency have taken on a derisive tone as he faces a stunning and unprecedented array of criminal and civil cases. In the Republican Party, his dominance over the 2024 primary field has only grown in recent weeks following the first-ever criminal indictment of a former president in Manhattan on 34 charges of falsifying business records, and GOP voters are showing no signs of losing the enthusiasm for Mr Trump that led him to victory in the 2016 contest.

That may explain why his recent events, including Thursday’s town hall, have been virtual repeats of one another. On top of the Republican field with little reason to believe that his dominance will face a serious test any time soon, Mr Trump was content on Thursday to play the favourites that win him the unchanging support of his diehard fans — subjects like China, where the ex-president touted his protectionist trade strategy and bragged about supposedly winning back billions in trade revenue. Or abortion, where he took a familiar victory lap, claiming he “got rid of Roe v Wade”.

These were themes the president has previously touched on dozens of times — he even had a brief chance to rant about the 2020 election and his attorney general who declared his stolen election claims “bulls***”, complaining that Bill Barr “didn’t have the courage to fight” rather than acknowledging that his own deputy disagreed with him.

The performance was a sign of a candidate returning to what he knows best, surrounded by a reportedly thinning circle of aides who are getting out of the way and letting the former president be himself. Given his iron-like grip over the GOP primary base, the strategy may work while making a pivot to the centre harder next year.

In Iowa, Mr Trump will face the first test of that strategy as his main challenger, Ron DeSantis of Florida, goes all-in on a bid to unseat Mr Trump as the frontrunner before he ever hits his stride.

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2023-06-02 03:18:41Z
2081999021

US Senate passes bill to end debt ceiling stand-off and avoid default - Financial Times

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2023-06-02 04:11:59Z
2087634956

Australian soldier Ben Roberts-Smith loses war crimes suit - Al Jazeera English

An Australian court has found that Ben Roberts-Smith, who was awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery, probably killed unarmed civilians in Afghanistan as three newspapers reported in 2018.

Roberts-Smith, a former soldier with the elite Special Air Services Regiment (SASR), sued the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Canberra Times for defamation after they reported he had murdered Afghans during multiple deployments to the country.

He claimed the publications had undermined his reputation and made him out to be a man who “broke the moral and legal rules of military engagement” and “disgraced his country and the Australian army”.

Reacting to the decision Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers said foreign forces had committed “uncountable crimes” during the 20-year war in the country.

A spokesperson for the group Bilal Karimi said incidents involved in the court case were a “small part” of the many alleged crimes that took place, and that they did not trust any court globally to follow them up.

“Murderer, war criminal, bully” reads @smh headline re Ben Roberts-Smith, a Victoria Cross winner. Can’t help but wondering whether his stunning fall from grace will culminate in criminal charges down the track.

— Kate McClymont (@Kate_McClymont) June 1, 2023

Justice.

— Nick McKenzie (@Ageinvestigates) June 1, 2023

In a summary judgement read out in Sydney on Thursday, Judge Anthony Besanko said that on the balance of probabilities – the evidential standard for a civil trial – “the respondents had established the substantial truth” of several of the allegations, including that in 2012 Roberts-Smith kicked an unarmed and handcuffed Afghan man off a cliff and then ordered two soldiers in his unit to kill the badly injured man.

Besanko found the journalists also established the substantial truth of reports that in 2009 he had murdered a disabled Afghan man, and also ordered the execution of a man who had hidden himself in a tunnel in a bombed-out facility known as Whiskey 108.

The publications, which had opted for the “truth” defence, welcomed the judge’s ruling.

Speaking outside court, Nick McKenzie, one of the journalists who reported the story, said it was a day of justice for “those brave men of the SAS who stood up and told the truth about who Ben Roberts-Smith is: a war criminal, a bully and a liar”.

His colleague Chris Masters, standing alongside him, said the result was a “relief” and praised the paper’s owner, Nine, for going ahead with publication in 2018.

“I think it will go down in the history of the news business as one of the great calls,” he said.

The publications opted for the “truth” defence, and some 40 witnesses gave evidence, including Afghan villagers who appeared via video from Kabul, and a number of serving and former soldiers, some of whom Roberts-Smith accused of jealousy and lying.

The case transfixed Australia through 110 days of hearings that were delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic and ended with closing arguments in July 2022.

Andrew Kenyon, a professor at the Melbourne Law School and expert on media law, freedom of expression and defamation, said the outcome was damning for the veteran.

“His name will be very much linked in the public mind with the murders that the judge said he committed directly or ordered through other actions,” Kenyon told Al Jazeera. “In that way, it’s a classic defamation case where the strongest result is in fact to change the reputation of the person who brought the case.”

‘Critical step’

The judge found that Roberts-Smith, who was not in court for the judgement, had also bullied fellow soldiers, but said other allegations of wrongdoing were not proven, including that he was complicit in two other murders in Afghanistan in 2012 and that he attacked his lover.

The full public judgement will not be available until Monday after the government asked for its release to be delayed on national security grounds.

Roberts-Smith was awarded the Victoria Cross, Australia’s highest military honour, for his gallantry under fire during operations in Afghanistan [File: Cpl Chris Moore/Pool via Getty Images]

Thursday’s judgement comes amid a growing focus on the conduct of Australia’s military.

The landmark Brereton Report, which was released in much-redacted form in 2020, found there was “credible evidence” members of the special forces had unlawfully killed 39 people while deployed in Afghanistan.

No soldiers were named in the report but it recommended 19 current or former members of the special forces be investigated by police over 23 incidents involving the killings of “prisoners, farmers or civilians” between 2009 and 2013.

An Office of the Special Investigator (OSI) was established and in March, it charged a 41-year-old former soldier with murder over the death of an Afghan man.

He is the first serving or former member of the Australian military to be charged with war crimes and faces a life sentence if found guilty.

Nine publishing executive James Chessell said Thursday’s ruling in Roberts-Smith’s defamation case was a “critical step” towards justice for the families of those killed, adding that the group’s journalists would continue to pursue the story.

“The story goes beyond this judgement,” Chessell said outside court. “We will continue to hold people involved in war crimes to account. The responsibility for these atrocities does not end with Ben Roberts-Smith.”

Roberts-Smith’s legal team has said they might consider an appeal and have 42 days to notify the court if they plan to do so.

A hearing will be held on costs in four weeks.

The hugely complex case is estimated to have cost as much as 25 million Australian dollars ($16.2m) and is the most expensive defamation case the country has ever seen, according to Kenyon.

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2023-06-01 10:16:15Z
2062646042

Prince and Princess of Wales in Jordan to attend royal wedding - The Telegraph

The Prince and Princess of Wales are in Jordan to attend the wedding of Crown Prince Al Hussein and Miss Rajwa Khalid this afternoon. 

The royal couple were spotted in a five-star luxury hotel in the country’s capital on Wednesday night.  

The Crown Prince, 28, is marrying the Saudi architect, 29, at Zahran Palace in Amman, which was also host to his father and grandfather’s weddings. 

The Princess of Wales is believed to have become close to the groom’s mother, Queen Rania of Jordan. 

US first lady Jill Biden and several members of royal families from around the world are expected to attend the nuptials, including the King and Queen of the Netherlands.

Jordan holds special memories for the Princess, as the Middleton family spent three years there during the early 80s, when she was just two years old, after her father was relocated there for work.

In 2021, the Walses’s took their three children to the ancient city of Petra in Jordan for a holiday, later releasing a photograph of the family there for their Christmas card. 

The Jordanian royal family has shared a longtime close connection with the British royals, and King Abdullah and Queen Rania were among the 2,300 guests at the King’s Coronation in May, as well as for the late Queen’s funeral last year.

The family's 2021 Christmas card - taken in Jordan Credit: KENSINGTON PALACE

Prince William and Crown Prince Hussein of Jordan look at a photo of Kate as a child in Jordan Credit: Ian Vogler/Daily Mirror

On Thursday morning, Saudi wedding guests and tourists — the men wearing white dishdasha robes and the women in brightly colored abayas — filtered through the sleek marbled lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel in Amman. 

Excitement over the nuptials — Jordan’s biggest royal event in years — has been building in the capital of Amman, where congratulatory banners of Crown Prince Hussein and his bride adorn buses and hang from houses. 

The country’s 11 million citizens have watched the young Crown Prince rise in prominence in recent years, as he increasingly joined his father, King Abdullah II, in public appearances. 

The Crown Prince was formally named heir to the throne in 2009 at the age of 15. He graduated from Georgetown University with a degree in international history in 2016 before joining the British Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst the following year. 

He holds the rank of captain in the Jordanian military and gained some global recognition speaking at the UN General Assembly. 

His bride, meanwhile, has a degree in architecture from Syracuse University in New York and has previously lived and worked in Los Angeles.

Jordan’s Crown Prince Hussein bin Abdullah and fiancée Rajwa Alseif Credit: Royal Hashemite Court of Jordan

There has been some speculation that the high-profile wedding could be aimed at distracting Jordanians from a bitter public rift between the King of Jordan and his half-brother, who was implicated in a failed coup attempt two years ago.

In May last year, King Abdullah II explained that he had placed his half brother, Prince Hamzah bin al-Hussein, under house arrest due to his “erratic behaviour and aspirations” in a public letter that was unprecedented in its candour.

The move came in the wake of a 2021 alleged coup attempt that Jordanian leaders claimed to have foiled by arresting 19 people, including Prince Hamzah and a number of political allies and officials.

The royal furore not only caused shock in Jordan but damaged the country’s regional relations, especially after a former Jordanian deputy prime minister claimed that Israel had orchestrated the plot.

It is hoped that Thursday’s lavish ceremony, which will be the first major royal wedding in Jordan in years, will be a joyful distraction for the royal family. 

Details surrounding the courtship and how the couple met have not been disclosed, though the pair were officially engaged at a Muslim ceremony in Riyadh in August 2022.

Jordanian Queen Rania alongisde her future daughter-in-law Rajwa Alsaif during a pre-wedding dinner party in Amman on May 22 Credit: Press Service of Jordanian Queen Rania/AFP

Their marriage could also prove to be symbolic of a wider, deeper partnership between Jordan and Saud Arabia, as the latter state seeks greater influence in the region following the Biden Administration’s decision to reduce its involvement in Middle East affairs.

The bride’s father is a founder of one of Saudi Arabia’s largest engineering firms and her mother is a relative of Saudi King Salman.

Saudi Arabia has already led diplomatic efforts to return Syria, a key trading partner with Jordan, to the regional fold, with dictator Bashar al-Assad addressing the Arab League for the first time in a decade in May.   

Saudi Arabia is also said to be exploring a potential normalisation treaty with Israel, which cooperates very closely with Jordan on security affairs, that could be signed as soon as this year.

Ahead of the wedding ceremony, Thursday has been declared a public holiday in Jordan so that crowds of people could gather after the service to wave at the couple’s motorcade of red Land Rover jeeps.

The tradition is a nod to the historical procession of horse riders clad in red coats during the reign of the country’s founder, King Abdullah I. 

Tens of thousands of well-wishers are expected to flock to free concerts and cultural events throughout the day and big screens have also been set up nationwide for crowds to watch the occasion unfold.

After the ceremony, the wedding party will move to Al Husseiniya Palace for a reception, entertainment and a state banquet. The couple are expected to greet more than 1,700 guests at the reception.

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2023-06-01 08:39:00Z
2057400190

Ben Roberts-Smith: Top Australian soldier loses war crimes defamation case - BBC

Getty Images

By Tiffanie Turnbull

BBC News, Sydney

Australia's most-decorated living soldier Ben Roberts-Smith has lost a historic defamation case against three newspapers that accused him of war crimes in Afghanistan.

The outlets were sued over articles alleging he killed unarmed prisoners.

The civil trial was the first time a court has assessed accusations of war crimes by Australian forces.

A judge said four of the six murder allegations - all denied by the soldier - were substantially true.

These included:

• A handcuffed farmer the soldier had kicked off a cliff - a fall which knocked out the man's teeth, before he was subsequently shot dead
• A captured Taliban fighter who was shot at least 10 times in the back, before his prosthetic leg was taken as a trophy and later used by troops as a drinking vessel
• Two murders which were ordered or agreed to by Mr Roberts-Smith to initiate or "blood" rookie soldiers.

Justice Anthony Besanko found the newspaper had not proven two other murder allegations; nor reports Mr Roberts-Smith had assaulted a woman with whom he was having an affair; nor a threat against a junior colleague.

But additional allegations that he had unlawfully assaulted captives and bullied peers were found to be true.

Mr Roberts-Smith, who left the defence force in 2013, has not been charged over any of the claims in a criminal court, where there is a higher burden of proof. The 44-year-old was not present for Thursday's judgement.

After the decision, a Taliban spokesman said the case was proof of "uncountable crimes" by foreign forces in Afghanistan, but added he did not trust any court globally to follow them up.

Australian troops were deployed to Afghanistan between 2001 and 2021. Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles declined to comment on the case, saying it was a civil matter.

Mr Roberts-Smith is Australia's most famous living war veteran and served with the country's elite Special Air Service Regiment (SAS).

He received the country's highest military award - the Victoria Cross - in 2011 for having single-handedly overpowered Taliban machine-gunners who had been attacking his platoon.

But his public image was shattered in 2018 when The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Canberra Times started publishing articles about his misconduct between 2009 and 2012.

The soldier argued five of the killings reported by the newspapers had occurred legally during combat, and the sixth did not happen at all.

His defamation case - dubbed by some "the trial of the century" - lasted 110 days and was rumoured to have cost up to A$25m ($16.3m, £13.2m).

More than 40 witnesses - including Afghan villagers, a government minister and a string of current and former SAS soldiers - gave extraordinary evidence about every facet of Mr Roberts-Smith's life.

• How a top soldier's defamation case rocked Australia

But the case also exposed some of the secretive inner workings of Australia's elite special forces.

The trial heard from soldiers who said potential misconduct was rarely reported due to a "code of silence" within the regiment, and others defended their actions as necessary.

Many giving evidence were there unwillingly, having been subpoenaed, and three refused to speak about some allegations fearing self-incrimination.

Much of the evidence against Mr Roberts-Smith relied on eyewitness accounts and recollections of discussions among soldiers. Justice Besanko had to weigh the reliability of witnesses against each other, with the media outlets contending theirs had no reason to lie.

Speaking outside the Federal Court in Sydney, the news outlets called the judgement a "vindication" for their reporting.

"It's a day of justice for the brave men of the SAS who stood up and told the truth about who Ben Roberts-Smith is: a war criminal, a bully and a liar," said investigative reporter Nick McKenzie, who wrote the stories alongside Chris Masters and David Wroe.

"[And] today is a day of some small justice for the Afghan victims of Ben Roberts-Smith."

Getty Images

The Afghanistan Human Rights and Democracy Organisation also praised the role of investigative journalism in "uncovering the truth and raising public awareness" about what had taken place in the country.

Media magnate Kerry Stokes - who employs Mr Roberts-Smith at rival outlet Seven West Media - said the judgement did "not accord with the man I know".

"I know this will be particularly hard for Ben, who has always maintained his innocence," said Mr Stokes, who loaned the soldier money to fund his legal case. Mr Roberts-Smith had offered to hand in his Victoria Cross as collateral, local media reported.

The case comes three years after a landmark report found credible evidence that Australian forces had unlawfully killed 39 civilians and prisoners in Afghanistan from 2007 to 2013.

Accusations of war crimes have also been levelled at soldiers from the UK and US in recent years.

Local media say dozens of Australian soldiers are being investigated for their roles in alleged war crimes. But so far charges have only been laid against one, Oliver Schulz.

• Australia ex-SAS soldier charged over alleged war crime
• Inquiry launched into claims British SAS killed Afghan civilians

War historian Peter Stanley told the BBC ahead of the judgement that Mr Roberts-Smith's case was "a litmus test" for allegations of Australian wrongdoing in Afghanistan.

"The Ben Roberts-Smith episode is just a precursor to the major series of war crimes investigations, allegations, prosecutions, and possibly convictions that we'll see over the next few years."

Related Topics

• Defamation cases
• Australia

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2023-06-01 10:08:41Z
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