Ben Roberts-Smith attends Anzac Day dawn service at Currumbin while on bail
Updated ,first published
Accused war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith arrived at the dawn ceremony on the beachfront on the southern Gold Coast, adorned with medals he received for his service in Afghanistan.
Roberts-Smith, who is out on bail facing war crime charges which he now denies, arrived at the Currumbin service in a suit at around 4.30am on Saturday.
Hundreds of service personnel and veterans filled temporary rows of seats in the car park beneath Elephant Rock at Currumbin Beach; Thousands of attendees lined the street above and the sand along the beach on either side of the shuttle.
Roberts-Smith arrived quietly, with little fanfare. He walked through the crowd and sat directly in a seat a few rows back from the stage.
“Anzac Day is sacred to me and all other veterans. I will attend to pay my respects and I encourage everyone else to attend as well,” Roberts-Smith said in a statement reported by the ABC and other media outlets.
An RSL Australia spokesman said Roberts-Smith could attend Anzac Day commemorations “as a veteran and like any other member of the community”.
RSL Australia national president Peter Tinley said in a statement that the organization exists to serve all veterans and their families.
“Our responsibility is not only to honor the martyrs, but also to fiercely defend and support the living,” he said.
“Thousands of Anzac Day ceremonies will take place across the country. Whether people attend a dawn service, march, pause at home for quiet reflection or share stories with family and friends, every act of commemoration matters.
“No matter how people refer to it, RSL Australia is just asking them to do that.”
Roberts-Smith, a decorated SAS soldier, was arrested following a five-year investigation by the secretive Special Investigations Bureau, a team of experienced state and federal police detectives established in 2021 to investigate the involvement of Australian troops in alleged war crimes in Afghanistan. The crimes charged carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
Roberts-Smith was allowed to live in Queensland after being released on bail from Sydney’s Silverwater prison. He is awaiting trial on five counts of murder, which is a war crime.
He said on Sunday that Roberts-Smith remained in custody for 10 days following his “deliberately sensational arrest” on charges he “categorically denies”.
His bail conditions require him to report to police three times a week, surrender his passport and not contact prosecution witnesses.
Roberts-Smith had already unsuccessfully challenged allegations that he had committed war crimes, including murders, in a libel case that he fought all the way to the Supreme Court. The criminal charges he now faces present a higher burden of proof for the prosecution to succeed.
Court documents released after the bail hearing revealed that prosecutors will argue that the five men killed by or on the orders of the decorated soldier were unarmed and handcuffed, and that evidence was later presented showing those deaths were legal.
Roberts-Smith’s lawyers also told the ABC that the former SAS soldier and his family did not attend a promoted “for him” rally in Melbourne on Sunday, nor was he linked to its organisers.
This imprint also attempted to contact Roberts-Smith’s attorneys for comment.
The planned rally outside Parliament House in Melbourne is backed by a group that has previously supported marches against “mass immigration” and described neo-Nazi figure Joel Davis and another man jailed for inciting racial hatred as a “political prisoner”.
The group’s stipulation that “only Australian flags” be used at the rally was disputed by its lawyers, a claim which had previously been postponed “following consultations with Ben Roberts-Smith’s family”.
James Hall is News Director of the Brisbane Times. He is a former Queensland correspondent for The Australian Financial Review and has covered a range of headlines across the country, specializing in political and financial reporting.Connect with: X or email.
Jack Gramenz is a breaking news reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.
