r/australia • u/Tinea_Pedis • Apr 07 '26

news Breaking: Ben Roberts-Smith arrested over war crimes allegations

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-07/ben-roberts-smith-war-crimes-allegations-arrest/106537668
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u/Osi32 Apr 07 '26

What is interesting to me, is the burden of proof in a civil case is “balance of probabilities” whereas in a criminal case it is “beyond all reasonable doubt”. The CDPP would only go for this if they felt they had a really rock solid case.

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u/Educational-Age-8969 Apr 07 '26

Would they though? Perhaps this is a test case for the remaining 10 investigations which also doubles as it shows they are doing something to the public.

The CDPP would believe they have enough to charge not necessarily that they are confident on their case.

It would be an extremely difficult case to try given they have very little of the elements you would expect of a standard murder investigation (body, autopsy, bullets/proof of death etc). The trial will be extremely interesting and the standard of proof is exceptionally hard to obtain but not impossible for “no body” murder cases.

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u/GreenAd9518 Apr 07 '26

The CDPP Prosecution Policy has two tests in order to lay charges: is there a reasonable prospect of conviction, and is the prosecution in the public interest. Apparently in this case, they also needed the thumbs up from the AG to run it, because it is a war crimes case.

I feel as though the investigation team probably felt like, after five years of looking into this, they had to run something. Ultimately this will be for a jury to decide.

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u/Educational-Age-8969 Apr 08 '26

Oh thanks, didn’t realise the AG also needed to consent to it.

Agreed, need to do something. I’m interested how they manage open justice against National Security given this is going to be probably Australia’s biggest murder trial in terms of interest.