{"id":59175,"date":"2026-07-27T06:45:30","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T06:45:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/59175\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T06:45:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T06:45:30","slug":"ben-roberts-smith-granted-bail-variation-to-move-to-brisbane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/59175\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Roberts-Smith granted bail variation to move to Brisbane"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Decorated soldier and alleged war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith has been granted a bail variation so he can move to Brisbane to be closer to his family. <\/p>\n<p>Mr Roberts-Smith was arrested by the Australian Federal Police in April and charged with five counts of war crime murder.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s alleged the former SAS soldier took part in the killings of five unarmed men while he was deployed in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012.<\/p>\n<p>He has yet to enter pleas to any of the charges.<\/p>\n<p>In the Downing Centre Local Court on Monday, Judge Susan Horan granted Mr Roberts-Smith\u2019s bail variation to allow him to move to Brisbane to be closer to his family. <\/p>\n<p>He has long maintained his innocence in relation to the allegations, which were the subject of his unsuccessful Federal Court defamation suit against Nine Newspapers.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Roberts-Smith has consistently denied any wrongdoing and the Federal Court findings against him were made to the civil standard of the balance of probabilities, which is below the criminal standard of beyond a reasonable doubt.<\/p>\n<p>The first two charges relate to the alleged killing of two men at a compound known as Whiskey 108 at Kakarak on April 12, 2009.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Roberts-Smith is alleged to have ordered another officer to kill one man and to have shot another man, who had a prosthetic leg, in the head.<\/p>\n<p>He is also alleged to have taken part in the murder of Afghan shepherd Ali Jan in Darwan in September 2012 when he allegedly kicked the handcuffed man off a cliff before ordering a junior member of his patrol to shoot him.<\/p>\n<p>The final two charges relate to the alleged killing of two \u201cpersons under control\u201d at Syahchow in October 2012 when Mr Roberts-Smith is alleged to have ordered another soldier to execute one of the prisoners.<\/p>\n<p>He is also alleged to have jointly murdered the other \u201cperson under control\u201d before placing \u201cthrowdowns\u201d on the bodies \u2013 pieces of military paraphernalia that give the appearance of a lawful combat killing.<\/p>\n<p>He will next return to court on September 1. <\/p>\n<p>Read related topics:<a class=\"topic_tag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.news.com.au\/topics\/brisbane\" data-tgev-container=\"story-topic-links\" data-tgev-label=\"Brisbane\" data-tgev-order=\"1\" data-tgev-metric=\"npv\" data-tgev=\"event10\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brisbane<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Decorated soldier and alleged war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith has been granted a bail variation so he can move&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[64422,64439,64461,64455,64432,64437,39842,64462,64433,64440,64431,45887,14768,64447,19810,64470,60479,64466,64453,37623,1572,64460,22,21,1113,15892,7148,64450,99,64474,15840,1109,64457,64443,64456,64438,64468,37416,64469,64429,64448,64472,64458,64442,37045,64459,1293,64467,64435,51908,3121,64424,64434,38756,24526,64423,64427,49671,64473,38764,64463,64426,59681,38491,64451,64446,64430,64454,64475,59898,64464,64441,64449,64445,64428,37489,64444,64452,42261,64436,64471,37474,64425,64465],"class_list":["post-59175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-s-bail-variation","tag-2009-and-2012-he","tag-2009-mr","tag-a-bail-variation","tag-a-cliff","tag-a-compound","tag-a-court","tag-a-junior-member","tag-a-lawful-combat-killing-he","tag-a-prosthetic-leg","tag-a-reasonable-doubt-the-first-two-charges","tag-afghan","tag-afghanistan","tag-ali-jan","tag-alleged-war-criminal","tag-alleged-war-criminal-brs","tag-another-man","tag-another-officer","tag-another-soldier","tag-any-wrongdoing","tag-april","tag-april-12","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-bail","tag-bail-variation","tag-ben-roberts-smith","tag-big-change","tag-brisbane","tag-brisbane-while","tag-control","tag-court","tag-darwan","tag-decorated","tag-five-counts","tag-five-unarmed-men","tag-him-the-final-two-charges","tag-his-family","tag-his-innocence","tag-his-patrol","tag-his-unsuccessful-federal-court-defamation-suit","tag-judge-susan-horan","tag-kakarak","tag-military-paraphernalia","tag-monday","tag-mr-roberts-smith","tag-newswire-court","tag-nine-newspapers-mr-roberts-smith","tag-october-2012","tag-one-man","tag-part","tag-pleas","tag-probabilities","tag-relation","tag-roberts-smith","tag-september-1","tag-september-2012","tag-soldier","tag-syahchow","tag-the-allegations","tag-the-alleged-killing","tag-the-alleged-murders","tag-the-appearance","tag-the-australian-federal-police","tag-the-balance","tag-the-bodies-pieces","tag-the-charges-in","tag-the-civil-standard","tag-the-criminal-standard","tag-the-downing-centre-local-court","tag-the-federal-court-findings","tag-the-former-sas-soldier","tag-the-handcuffed-man","tag-the-head-he","tag-the-killings","tag-the-murder","tag-the-other-person","tag-the-prisoners-he","tag-the-subject","tag-throwdowns","tag-two-persons","tag-two-men","tag-war-crime-murder-it","tag-whiskey-108"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59175","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=59175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}