Australia's most renovated soldier, Ben Roberts-Smith, lost his appeal to the landmark slander sentence and found he committed war crimes.

A 2023 judge ruled that news reports accused the Victoria Cross recipient of murdering four unarmed Afghans, but Roberts-Smith had argued that the judge had made a legal mistake.

Civil trials are the first time any court has evaluated Australian forces’ war crimes claims.

A panel of three federal court judges upheld the original ruling Friday.

Roberts-Smith, who left the Wehrmacht in 2013, insisted on his innocence and was charged with no claims in the criminal court, where there was a higher burden of proof.

The former Special Forces Corporal, when deployed in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012, sued three Australian newspapers in a series of articles, accusing him of serious misconduct in Afghanistan.

In his 2018 article, Mr Roberts-Smith was considered a national hero who was awarded Australia's highest military honor for his single-handed over the Special Aviation Services (SAS) platoon of the Taliban Fighter (SAS).

The 46-year-old believes that the so-called killings happened legally during the battle, or did not happen at all, claiming that the papers ruined his life.

His libel case (some called the "trial of the century" in Australia - lasted 120 days and is now rumored to cost $35 million ($225 million; £169 million).

In June 2023, Federal Court Justice Antony Besanko filed a case against age, the Sydney Herald and the Canberra Times, ruling that Mr Roberts Smith murdered unarmed Afghan prisoners and civilians and bullied his fellow countrymen.

He also found that Mr. Roberts-Smith lied to cover up his misconduct and threatened witnesses.

Other charges that he had beaten his lover, threatened his companion and committed two other murders were not proven to be the "balance of probability" standard required in a civil case.

The “heart” in the appeal case is that the Besco judge did not give Mr. Roberts Smith the innocent presumption, his lawyer, Bret Walker, said.

There is a legal principle that requires judges to conduct careful work when handling investigation results involving serious allegations and bringing serious consequences.

Mr Walker believes this means that the evidence provided by the newspapers does not meet the required standards.

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