Ben Roberts-Smith launches EPIC 1 TWO brand to fund family and legal defence

Ben Roberts-Smith, the Australian soldier charged with murdering or ordering the murders of five unarmed detainees in Afghanistan, has launched a brand he says he needs to support his family and pay his legal expenses. The 47-year-old announced the label, EPIC 1 TWO, in an Instagram video showing him walking on a Gold Coast beach and working out, with audio from media reports about his Victoria Cross award and his later arrest. The post carried the caption: "Get ready....the time has come. #neveroutofthefight #underdog".

Roberts-Smith was arrested in April and charged over the deaths of five unarmed detainees while deployed in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012. In a statement at the time, he categorically denied all allegations against him and said he had "always acted within my values, within my training and within the rules of engagement".

He told news.com.au that the brand was partly an attempt to earn money for his family, and said media pressure had discouraged organisations from backing him. He cited the example of people with a public profile being criticised simply for saying he should be entitled to a fair process. EPIC 1 TWO, he said, was named after his radio call sign on the mission for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross, and was "100 per cent" about the underdog — about people knowing they will get through hard times if they keep going.

In a statement, he described the brand as "something very personal to me" and said it was about accepting your own situation without losing hope. The News24 commentator Peta Credlin and boxer Danny Green were among those who commented on the Instagram post to congratulate him.

The charges

According to court documents, the charges relate to three separate incidents in Afghanistan. The first two concern two alleged murders at the village of Kakarak in southern Afghanistan on 12 April 2009. Two men, a father and son named Mohammad Essa and Ahmadullah, were found hiding in a tunnel in a compound designated "Whiskey 108". It is alleged that Ahmadullah, who wore a prosthetic leg, was carried outside the compound walls, thrown to the ground and shot multiple times by Roberts-Smith with a belt-fed machine gun, in an act witnessed by several Australian soldiers. Roberts-Smith is then alleged to have walked back inside and ordered another soldier to kill Mohammad Essa.

The third charge concerns 11 September 2012, during a search for a rogue Afghan national army soldier, Hekmatullah, who had killed three and wounded two Australian soldiers. Roberts-Smith is alleged to have ordered another soldier to kill a farmer named Ali Jan during that mission.

The fourth and fifth charges allege he was complicit in the murder of two prisoners who were marched to the edge of a cornfield under the control of Australian soldiers during a mission in the village of Syahchow in October 2012. The prisoners were allegedly shot dead, either by Roberts-Smith or at his direction.

Bail and memorial appearance

Roberts-Smith was released on bail after his father, Len Roberts-Smith, a former Western Australian supreme court judge, paid a $250,000 surety. In June he successfully applied to vary his bail so he could attend the opening of the Anzac Hall at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, and he attended the opening on Sunday.

Source: The Guardian World.