Victoria Cross-winner Ben Roberts-Smith executed an Afghan detainee and directed a fellow soldier to kill another non-threatening man in a raid in 2009, according to court testimony from a serving special forces soldier. The soldier, known as Person 41, has been called by The Age, Sydney Morning Herald and the Canberra Times in the defamation trial launched by Roberts-Smith over a series of reports from 2018 that he says portray him as a war criminal. And yesterday, Person 41 said he saw Roberts-Smith instruct an Aussie soldier to kill an elderly, unarmed Afghan man. He later witnessed the decorated SAS officer fire “3 to 5 rounds” into another Afghan man’s back, killing him. The witness, who is still in the military, was granted a certificate protecting him against self-incrimination. The testimony of the men Roberts-Smith served with in Afghanistan marks a new phase of the trial that has been eagerly anticipated after COVID delays, and more is set to come.