No apologies: Ben Roberts-Smith breaks silence
Former SAS soldier Ben Roberts-Smith has returned to Australia for the first time since losing his defamation case against Nine newspapers.
Roberts-Smith touched down in Perth on June 14 and said he was shattered by the outcome of his defamation case against The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Canberra Times.
This is the first time he has spoken out publicly since the landmark ruling.
"It was a terrible result and obviously the incorrect result. We will look at it and consider whether or not we need to file an appeal," Roberts-Smith said after landing in Perth.
"There is not much more I can say about it ... we just have to work through it and I'll take the advice as it comes.”
He was spotted checking into business class with his girlfriend in Queenstown, New Zealand prior to touching down in Perth.
Roberts-Smith rules out apologising to families of the victims impacted by his actions in Afghanistan.
"We haven't done anything wrong, so we won't be making any apologies," he said.
As he was collecting his luggage at Perth airport, he was approached by a man who voiced his support for the former soldier.
Roberts-Smith's return comes on the same day as reports that an Australian Federal Police investigation into his alleged war crimes had collapsed.
The decision by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions not to prosecute Roberts-Smith based on evidence collected by the AFP has led to a new joint task force being assembled to investigate alleged executions.
The task force is comprised of detectives from the specialist war crimes agency, the Office of the Special Investigator and a new team of federal police investigators not related to the abandoned AFP probe.
Roberts-Smith did not appear in the Federal Court when a judge found allegations he murdered or was complicit in the killing of four unarmed Afghans while deployed overseas were "substantially true” in a bombshell defamation ruling.
The former soldier insists there was never any foul play.
Image credit: A Current Affair