Gina Rinehart asks how investigation into Ben Roberts-Smith can be ‘justified’

Roberts-Smith, Australia’s most decorated soldier and a veteran of deployments in both Iraq and Afghanistan, was arrested at Sydney’s domestic airport yesterday and charged with five counts of murder – war crimes.

The alleged killings took place between 2009 and 2012 in Afghanistan.

Roberts-Smith has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

“Have we lost sight of the fact that in our under-defended country, which faces uncertain times, the morale of our defense force has already been at its lowest level since its inception, our defense personnel are inadequate and recruitment is suffering,” Rinehart said in her statement.

“The more than $300 million of taxpayers’ money would certainly have been much better spent on strengthening Australia’s security and protecting Australians from terrorism, including removing terrorists and their supporters from our country.

“Like many Australians, I hope that compassion and the Australian spirit will be extended to Ben and his family and that his duty to our country in the hardships of war will never be forgotten.”

“I remain steadfast in my support of Ben Roberts-Smith despite the news of his arrest today,” Hanson said yesterday.

“Ben, his immediate and wider defense family needs the support of the Australian people now and I will not let him down like so many other politicians.

“Ben was shamefully arrested in front of his 15-year-old twin girls.”

She said the Australian Federal Police and the Office of the Special Investigator had spent “$300 million over 10 years to get to this point”.

The investigation into Roberts-Smith was opened in 2021, AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett said yesterday.

Abbott said he had “instinctive sympathy” for Roberts-Smith and questioned why charges had not been filed sooner.

“If Ben Roberts-Smith committed an offence, why was this not picked up prior to his gallantry awards and why wasn’t any culture of brutality towards prisoners discovered by his senior officers and quickly dealt with, rather than allowed to fester, as alleged, for more than a decade?” he said.

OSI research director Ross Barnett yesterday elaborated on the length of the investigation, pointing out that there was no access to crime scenes 6,000 miles away, nor even an autopsy of the alleged victims.

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