A soldier claiming war hero Ben Roberts-Smith executed an unarmed man and ordered another's death in short succession, denies he's spouting fiction to cover his own shortcomings.
The still-serving special forces soldier, known as Person 41, says on a mission in Afghanistan in 2009, he saw Mr Roberts-Smith place an unarmed Afghan at the feet of another rookie and say "shoot him".
Pressed by Mr Roberts-Smith's lawyer on Thursday, the witness denied the account about the assault on the Taliban compound nicknamed Whiskey 108 was a story "to assuage your feelings ... because you were unable to cut it that day as a soldier".
That suggestion had come after the witness conceded he'd been "scared" and didn't want to enter a tunnel the soldiers had found in the compound minutes earlier.
"You're lying to yourself about what happened that day to cover up from the fact you were scared and walked away from Persons 29 and 35," Arthur Moses SC said, using codenames for the soldiers standing beside Person 41 at the tunnel entrance.
"No," the witness replied.
Person 41 said he walked away to check another room, not because he was scared.
He stood by his evidence given on Wednesday that after the first execution, Mr Roberts-Smith had pushed an unarmed Afghan male to the ground, flipped him onto his stomach and fired shots into him before asking Person 41 "we cool?"
"I said 'yeah, no worries, mate'."
Mr Moses pointed to a discrepancy with an earlier statement that had "no dramas" not "no worries".
"You're just making this up, aren't you? You're not able to tell the difference between fact and fiction, correct?" he asked.
"Incorrect," Person 41 replied.
Mr Roberts-Smith, who is among a handful of living Australians with a Victoria Cross medal, is suing three newspapers in the Federal Court, alleging he was unlawfully defamed in articles claiming he committed war crimes in Afghanistan. The newspapers have mounted a truth defence.
Ben Roberts-Smith arrives at the Federal Court in Sydney on Monday, 7 June, 2021. Source: AAP
The case has resumed in the Federal Court after a six month adjournment due to the pandemic.
The retired SAS corporal, 43, denies breaching any rules of engagement while in Afghanistan.
When testifying earlier in the trial, he specifically rubbished the execution suggestions, saying the first killing never occurred and the second killing was in fact him spotting and shooting dead an insurgent holding a bolt-action rifle.
Person 41 on Thursday said the first execution caused him guilt "to a certain extent" and shame but he was "happy to put it in the back of my memory", not raising either incident with anyone until 2020.
That was despite complaining to his patrol commander during his first tour about the commander's deputy and - as Mr Moses put it - later filing a form having "a crack" at the SAS's highest officer "for not making logical decisions" during the tour.
"The reason I didn't (complain about the executions) was I wanted to keep my job and I didn't want to be the bloke speaking out about incidents, and not playing the team game," Person 41 testified on Thursday.
He said he believed a prosthetic leg used as a drinking vessel in the SAS base's pub had come from the man Mr Roberts-Smith shot.
But that belief hadn't halted Person 41 from joining several soldiers in drinking from the leg.
"It's something I shouldn't have done ... it was a bit of black humour and everyone was all in it together."
Person 41 agreed he was on a 2012 patrol linked to a different alleged war crime, dubbed "the tractor job", but denied he was concerned about anything he did that day.
The trial resumes on Friday, with another Australian soldier witness.
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