Ben Roberts-Smith has been spotted for the first time since losing his major defamation case.
Australia’s most decorated living soldier was spotted in Queenstown Airport in New Zealand boarding a flight to Australia on Wednesday.
The sighting comes 10 days after Mr Roberts-Smith lost his defamation action against The Age, Sydney Morning Herald and The Canberra Times.
Mr Roberts-Smith had been seen in Bali the day before the verdict was handed down.
Justice Anthony Besanko ruled that the allegations against Mr Roberts-Smith, which include war crimes and murders, were proven to a civil standard of the balance of probabilities.
Mr Roberts-Smith has not faced any criminal charges.
In the wake of the findings, many have called for Mr Roberts-Smith to be stripped of his medals, including the Victoria Cross, and to have mention of him removed from the Australian War Memorial.
Meanwhile, former SAS captain and federal MP Andrew Hastie, who testified against Mr Roberts-Smith at the defamation trial, has broken his silence on the result.
He said sadness and relief at the finding.
“Sadness for the Afghan lives lost and the families who are hurt, sadness for the relationships severed and sadness for the reputations destroyed, both individually and at the institutional level with the SASR particularly,” he told the ABC.
“Relief, though, that the cold hard truth that many of the regiment have been carrying inside them for many years, is now out in the public domain and it has been validated by a Federal Court Justice.”
Mr Hastie, who is now the Opposition defence spokesman, praised the soldiers that raised the claims.
“They’ve shown moral courage. They’ve been brave,” Mr Hastie told the ABC.
“I honour their work, because it’s they who have demonstrated that the regiment has a moral pulse, that the regiment can self-correct. And it’s they who have repudiated the toxic culture and behaviour.”
The Brereton inquiry into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan, which handed down its report in 2021, found credible evidence 39 Afghan civilians were killed by Australian special forces during the war.
It identified 25 current or former ADF personnel as alleged perpetrators, either as principals or accessories.