Former soldier Ben Roberts-Smith has been ordered to pay the legal costs of several media outlets following a failed defamation action over allegations he committed war crimes.
The Federal Court ruled in June that articles published by Nine newspapers and The Canberra Times alleging Roberts-Smith’s involvement in four murders while deployed in Afghanistan were substantially true.
He has not been criminally charged and has since appealed the decision.
He was today ordered by the court to pay the outlets’ legal costs assessed on an indemnity basis for the long-running defamation trial, which took 110 days to hear.
Estimates have pegged the cost for the opposing parties at exceeding $25 million.
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Nine-owned titles The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, as well as The Canberra Times, reported allegations the SAS soldier was involved in the murders of four unarmed prisoners.
Nine is the publisher of this website.
The publishers’ barrister, Nicholas Owens SC, told the court earlier this year Roberts-Smith sued to conceal the truth and would have succeeded in that pursuit had the newspapers failed to prove their claims.
“It must be the case, inevitably and necessarily, that the applicant commenced these proceedings and continued these proceedings knowing those imputations sued upon were in fact true,” he said.
