Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith has given a lengthy two-hour interview about his time in Afghanistan, while criticising the current state of journalism that has fed into a costly defamation case against Nine Entertainment and current accusations of war crimes.
Roberts-Smith is accused of five counts of war crime murder relating to his service in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012—he has consistently denied the allegations and is currently on bail awaiting trial.
If found guilty, Roberts-Smith faces life in prison.
Running Towards Enemy Fire
Speaking to Sydney’s 2GB radio, Roberts-Smith recounted the moment he received the esteemed Victoria Cross medal— Australia’s highest military decoration for valour—and how he went from an esteemed hero to being portrayed as a popular villain.
Roberts-Smith recalled how he and his fellow Special Air Service members were in Tizak, Afghanistan in 2010, outnumbered four to one by Taliban fighters.
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As hundreds of bullets rained down on the Australians, Roberts Smith says the one thought in his mind was ensuring his counterparts made it home safe—that was when he decided to run towards the enemy as a distraction.
“I didn’t think to myself, ‘Oh my God, I could die’—it’s happening too quickly to worry about that at that point,” he said.
“But I’m looking at two guys next to me, that are taking the brunt of the machine gun fire at a range of maybe 20 metres … there’s hundreds of bullets coming from three different machine guns, and you could literally see the leaves were just falling off the trees.
“And then the dirt just getting kicked up around them, and like one of them particularly was pushing his face into the dirt of the orchard … which doesn’t … help you at all, right? But it’s your survival response …”
Roberts-Smith’s decision and action later won him a private audience with the late Queen Elizabeth II, who he says sat with him on a couch, touched his arm and asked him about his service.
“Mate, it was bizarre. But she was just … so cool, so relaxed and so kind to give me her time and be so open,” he said.
Claims Emerge
But in 2018, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald published a series of investigative articles alleging Roberts-Smith committed war crimes during his service, prompting investigations from the Australian Federal Police (AFP).
Roberts-Smith recalls receiving an email from a reporter, asking him about the allegations, including an alleged murder of a child in 2006.
“I was basically in shock,” he said.
“It’s not just the allegation of a war crime, but a war crime where you shot a child. It doesn’t get any worse than that.”
On April 7, 2026, Roberts-Smith was arrested on a plane at Sydney Airport after having taken his twin daughters on a brief getaway.
“I hate it because that’s a memory that will never ever leave them, and I don’t care what anybody says,” he said.
The Prosthetic Leg
In a photo taken during his time in Afghanistan, Roberts-Smith is seen posing for a photo beside another man at an Australian base, who can be seen drinking from a prosthetic leg.
The image circulated widely, and while Roberts-Smith confirmed members of the Australian contingent did take the leg back to base to drink from it, he claims he took no part.
“I’d really like to share my view on that because many people don’t understand the level of stress that guys go through,” he said.
“And to many people that will seem grotesque.
“And whilst I didn’t drink out of i t… and that’s for personal reasons, [it] had nothing to do with what I thought of people who did drink out of it.”
Roberts-Smith said objects could serve as ways to decompress after battles, the prosthetic leg serving as “a unified object that signified a successful raid on a day where Australian forces had been engaged for hours.”
“I think that the dark humour that so many emergency service organisations, military organisations, rely upon to maintain their sanity, will sometimes be misconstrued,” he said.
“And another point I make out about the leg, particularly, is that there were legitimate targets who had a prosthetic leg—it was an objective, and on many occasions there was intelligence reporting about individuals finding explosives in their prosthetic legs to transport (to) places.
“So it’s never as simple as they can be made to seem in … journalistic reports.”
Claims of Media Manipulation
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“I actually don’t know how we find a jury that hasn’t already, to some degree, formed an opinion,” Roberts-Smith said of the upcoming trial.
“There was so much misinformation, as well as actual information.
“Just remember that I’m also a father, I’m a son, I’m a brother, I’m a partner. And at the base level, I’m a human being who’s just trying to deal with a situation that has been put on.”
