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American freed by Taliban RETURNS HOME
After enduring over a year of detention by the Taliban in Afghanistan without facing any formal charges, American Dennis Coyle has finally returned home to the United States. His reunion with family and friends marks the end of a long and uncertain ordeal.
Meanwhile, in a separate development, Australia is grappling with a high-profile legal case involving its most decorated living soldier, Ben Roberts-Smith. The 47-year-old former Australian Defence Force member has been arrested and charged with the murder of five individuals during the Afghanistan war. His charges have sparked significant debate across the nation.
Roberts-Smith was taken into custody at Sydney Airport, and his arrest has drawn strong reactions from various quarters. A former Australian prime minister criticized the charges, arguing that the actions of soldiers in combat should not be judged by the same standards applied to civilians. Tech mogul Elon Musk also expressed his surprise, labeling the situation as “insane.”
The Australian Federal Police, along with the Office of the Special Investigator, announced that Roberts-Smith is implicated in the deaths of five unarmed Afghan nationals across three incidents occurring between 2009 and 2012. According to AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett, the allegations suggest that Roberts-Smith either directly committed the acts or ordered a subordinate to do so. If found guilty, he could face life imprisonment for each charge.
During a press briefing, Barrett stated, “It will be alleged that the victims were not participating in hostilities at the time of their alleged murder in Afghanistan.” She further elaborated that the victims were reportedly detained, unarmed, and under the control of Australian Defence Force members when they were killed.
Ben Roberts-Smith arrives at the Federal Court in Sydney on June 9, 2021. Australia’s most decorated living war veteran lodged an appeal on Tuesday, July 11, 2023, against a civil court ruling that blamed him for the unlawful killings of four Afghans. (Rick Rycroft/AP)
The investigation into Roberts-Smith began in 2021, according to Ross Barnett, director of investigations at the Office of the Special Investigator. Roberts-Smith received the Victoria Cross after storming two enemy machine guns during his fifth tour in Afghanistan.
Barnett said at the press conference that the investigation was “under challenging circumstances,” given that some of the murders occurred well over a decade ago and investigators were unable to visit Afghanistan.
“We don’t have access to the crime scenes, we don’t have photographs, site plans, measurements, the recovery of projectiles, blood spatter analysis, all of those things we would normally get at a crime scene,” Barnett said at the press conference.
Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith VC, MG attends a Victoria Cross and George Cross Association Reunion Service at St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church on May 30, 2012 in London, England. (Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images)
While Australia’s current prime minister has yet to weigh in on the arrest, former Australian Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Party Tony Abbott expressed his support for Roberts-Smith on X in a lengthy post.
“If Ben Roberts-Smith transgressed, why wasn’t this picked up prior to his gallantry awards and why wasn’t any culture of brutality towards prisoners detected by his more senior officers, and dealt with quickly, rather than being allowed to fester, as has been alleged, for over a decade?” Abbott wrote.
Allegations that Roberts-Smith engaged in war crimes began circulating publicly in 2017 and 2018 in articles published by The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and The Canberra Times.
Roberts-Smith filed a defamation suit against the papers, which became Australia’s most expensive defamation trial, but in 2023, a Federal Court judge ruled that four of the six murder allegations brought by the papers against Roberts-Smith were legitimate.
In one of the allegations ruled to have merit by Justice Anthony Besanko, Roberts-Smith allegedly marched a handcuffed Afghan man named Ali Jan off the edge of a 10-meter cliff. He survived the fall, but Roberts-Smith and his fellow soldiers walked down a footpath to meet him. Roberts-Smith then ordered a subordinate, known as Person 11 in court, to shoot him.
Ben Roberts-Smith departs the Federal Court of Australia in Sydney on June 7, 2021 in Sydney, Australia. (Sam Mooy/Getty Images)
The High Court dismissed Roberts-Smith’s appeal of the ruling in September 2025.
The criminal charges against Roberts-Smith stem from a joint effort by OSI and AFP. The two Australian agencies have conducted 53 investigations into ADF members tied to war crime allegations in Afghanistan. Ten of the investigations remain ongoing.