On the day a judge ruled the Victoria Cross winner had lost his defamation case and been proven to be a war criminal, Roberts-Smith didn’t turn up to court
Ben Roberts-Smith loses defamation case, with judge finding former SAS soldier committed war crimesListen to Guardian Australia’s Ben Roberts-Smith v the media podcastGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast
In the end, the attention was on the man who wasn’t there.
All two metres of Ben Roberts-Smith was glaringly absent from the packed, anxious room in Sydney’s federal court building, as a judge quietly explained that the man once revered as the most famous soldier of his generation was, on the balance of probabilities, a murderer who callously killed unarmed civilians while serving in Australia’s military in Afghanistan.
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