{"id":19129,"date":"2026-05-27T01:46:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T01:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/19129\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T01:46:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T01:46:14","slug":"war-crimes-investigators-refer-media-leaks-on-ben-roberts-smith-arrest-to-corruption-commission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/19129\/","title":{"rendered":"War crimes investigators refer media leaks on Ben Roberts-Smith arrest to corruption commission"},"content":{"rendered":"

The leaking of information to the media ahead of the arrest of former soldier Ben Roberts-Smith has been referred to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC).<\/p>\n

The Office of the Special Investigator (OSI), which is investigating war crimes, and the Australian Federal Police (AFP), have jointly taken the matter to the corruption agency.<\/p>\n

Mr Roberts-Smith’s arrest on multiple charges of the war crime of murder took place at Sydney Airport on April 7, as he landed on a flight from Brisbane.<\/p>\n

Media officers from the Australian Federal Police filmed his arrest taking place, and later distributed that vision to media outlets.<\/p>\n

Loading…<\/p>\n

But during a Senate estimates hearing last night, officials from the OSI were questioned on how some media outlets came to be at the airport ahead of the arrest.<\/p>\n

Nine News said it had reporters at the airport ahead of the plane’s arrival, and broadcast images taken from inside the terminal.<\/p>\n

The director-general of the OSI, Chris Moraitis, told the estimates hearing he was alarmed that details of the planned arrest had spread.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Chris Moraitis says authorities believe there were leaks to media. (ABC News: Tamara Penniket)<\/p>\n

He said officers noticed media around before the arrest took place.<\/p>\n

“That’s a matter that concerns me, that media seems to have been privy to things,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We’re taking steps to ascertain what happened there.”<\/p>\n

Mr Moraitis said the matter was being taken to the anti-corruption commission.<\/p>\n

“The AFP and I have written to the NACC about this, asking them to consider and provide information about that,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We believe there was an unauthorised disclosure.<\/p>\n

“It surprised me that that happened, because we’ve usually been pretty good at keeping a low profile.”<\/p>\n

Ten war crimes investigations continuing<\/p>\n

In earlier evidence, the OSI detailed its continuing work investigating war crimes committed by Australian soldiers abroad.<\/p>\n

SAS veteran charged with war crime<\/a><\/p>\n

Police charge a decorated former SAS soldier who was shown in a Four Corners program shooting an Afghan man in a wheat field. He is the first Australian serviceman or veteran to be charged with a war crime under Australian law.<\/p>\n

The OSI was established in early 2021 to investigate findings from the Afghanistan Inquiry, which found credible allegations of war crimes committed by Australian soldiers.<\/p>\n

Chris Moraitis said of the 53 investigations it launched, 39 had been discontinued and 10 remained ongoing.<\/p>\n

Two have proceeded to prosecution, with charges laid against Mr Roberts-Smith and former soldier Oliver Schulz.<\/p>\n

Mr Moraitis said the OSI was working to resolve the remaining cases “soon”.<\/p>\n

“Soon can mean anywhere from six months to a year and a half,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We are actively pursuing those investigations with a view of coming to a conclusion either way.<\/p>\n

“Whether we refer matters to the DPP, or decide there is insufficient evidence.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The leaking of information to the media ahead of the arrest of former soldier Ben Roberts-Smith has been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[18651,3340,22,1758,21,7148,18654,18652,18653],"class_list":["post-19129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-anti-corruption","tag-arrest","tag-au","tag-australian-federal-police","tag-austrlia","tag-ben-roberts-smith","tag-chris-moraitis","tag-media-leaks","tag-office-of-the-special-investigator"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}