A former elite soldier has rejected accusations in court that he and war veteran Ben Roberts-Smith have "concocted a false story" to cover up the death of a detained Afghan man during a 2012 mission.
The witness was called by Mr Roberts-Smith's legal team in a defamation case against three newspapers, over a series of stories published in 2018 which the veteran claims contained false allegations of unlawful killings, bullying and domestic violence.
Codenamed Person 11, the ex-SAS soldier has given evidence supportive of Mr Roberts-Smith's own account of a mission in the village of Darwan.
In publisher Nine Entertainment's court documents, it's alleged the Victoria Cross recipient kicked an unarmed and handcuffed Afghan man named Ali Jan over a cliff following an interrogation, before he was dragged from a dry creek bed into vegetation and executed.
Person 11 told the Federal Court he shot a suspected Taliban lookout in a cornfield from a distance of about 15 metres, after assessing the man posed a "direct threat" to their helicopter extraction due to his movement and an ICOM radio in his hand.
Under cross-examination by Nine's barrister, Nicholas Owens SC, Person 11 today told the court the area where he saw the "spotter" was "thickly-vegetated", with crops varying in height between five and seven feet.
"Did the 15 metres of thickly-planted crop impede your ability to observe him at all?" Mr Owens asked.
"I had enough visibility to observe what I saw," Person 11 replied.
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