A former SAS soldier accused of killing an Afghan civilian during a mission in southern Afghanistan more than a decade ago has been arrested and charged with the war crime of murder.
Oliver Schulz, 41, was arrested in the southern highlands of New South Wales by Australian federal police and NSW police. He is listed to face Queanbeyan local court on Tuesday morning.
In a statement, the Australian Federal Police said: “It will be alleged he murdered an Afghan man while deployed to Afghanistan with the Australian defence force.
“The maximum penalty for a war crime – murder offence is life imprisonment.”
Footage broadcast by the ABC’s Four Corners program shows an Australian trooper, allegedly Schulz, shooting dead a prone Afghan man, who is lying with his hands up, in a wheat field in southern Afghanistan’s Uruzgan province.
Schulz was a trooper with the SAS’s 3 Squadron, serving in Rotation XVII, in 2012.
Schulz’s arrest follows a four-year investigation by the inspector general of the Australian defence force, Maj Gen Paul Brereton, which found “credible” evidence to support allegations that 39 Afghan civilians were unlawfully killed by Australian special forces soldiers.
The Office of the Special Investigator was especially established by government to investigate the Brereton report’s findings for criminal investigation.
The AFP said: “The Office of the Special Investigator and the AFP are working together to investigate allegations of criminal offences under Australian law related to breaches of the laws of armed conflict by Australian defence force personnel in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016.”
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Last month, before parliament, the head of the OSI said the agency was investigating “between 40 and 50” alleged offences by Australian special forces soldiers in the Afghan conflict.
