A 41-year-old former Australian SAS soldier was arrested on Monday and is expected to be charged with one count of “war crime – murder” following an investigation into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan.
The man is due to appear in court later on Monday, Australian Federal Police said.
The offense carries a maximum sentence of life in jail, BBC reported.
While the arrested man has not yet been officially identified by authorities, the Australia Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) says he is the person referred to as Soldier C in a 2020 ABC Four Corners documentary exposing alleged war crimes.
Footage showed Soldier C shooting an Afghan man in a wheat field in Uruzgan Province in southern Afghanistan in 2012.
The investigation was carried out by the Office of the Special Investigator (OSI), the body set up to investigate alleged war crimes following a four-year inquiry led by an Army Reserve major general and NSW Supreme Court judge Paul Brereton, BBC reported.
The Brereton Report – released in 2020 – found there was “credible evidence” that Australian elite soldiers unlawfully killed 39 people during the Afghan war.
It said 19 current or ex-special forces soldiers should be investigated by police over killings of “prisoners, farmers or civilians” from 2009 to 2013.
This is believed to be the first arrest linked to that inquiry.
At the time, the Australian Defence Force blamed crimes on an unchecked “warrior culture” among some soldiers.
