March 16, 2022 — 6.57pm
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The public doesn’t know and most likely will never learn the name of senior special forces soldier Person 7. But based on his evidence to the Federal Court in Sydney on Wednesday, he is a man who has the courage of his convictions.
Under questioning, the SAS warrant officer outed himself in the Ben Roberts-Smith defamation trial as a key source for Nine’s investigative journalists Chris Masters and Nick McKenzie. He admitted, without equivocation and without apology, to becoming a whistleblower.
What motivated this veteran of 11 tours to Afghanistan, who was entrusted with planning some of his unit’s most dangerous missions, to breach Defence regulations by making unsanctioned contact with journalists?
It was the need, he said, to be a “voice from within” and to support soldiers he believed were the targets of an “aggressive campaign” by Roberts-Smith to mute them.
Person 7’s first contact with veteran reporter Masters – for Masters’ book, No Front Line, about Australia’s special forces – was approved by the army. But after that initial contact, he told the court, there was subsequent contact with Masters, and a meeting at which he was introduced to McKenzie.
When McKenzie approached him about appearing, with his identity disguised, in a 60 Minutes program in September 2019 alleging war crimes by SAS soldiers, he agreed, despite the risks to his career.
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