CANBERRA, Australia (AP) – Police have charged the first Australian veteran with murder in Afghanistan, three years after a war crimes investigation found 19 Australian Special Forces soldiers could be charged with illegal conduct.
Former Special Air Service Regiment soldier Oliver Schulz, 41, has been arrested in the state of New South Wales and charged by police with the war crime of murder, according to a statement from the Australian Federal Police.
“It is alleged that he murdered an Afghan while deployed in Afghanistan,” the statement said.
Schulz’s charges were raised in a Queanbeyan court late Monday, where his attorney did not request his release on bail. Schulz was remanded in custody to appear in a Sydney court on May 16.
The Australian Broadcasting Corp. broadcast helmet camera video of a soldier in 2020, who it said Schulz shot and killed an Afghan man in a wheat field in Uruzgan province in 2012.
Schulz, who was awarded the Commendation for Gallantry for his service in Afghanistan, faces a life sentence if convicted.
Police are working with the Office of the Special Investigator, an Australian investigative agency established in 2021, to develop cases against elite SAS and Commando Regiment troops who served in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016.
A military report released in 2020 after a four-year investigation found evidence Australian forces unlawfully killed 39 Afghan prisoners, farmers and civilians. The report recommended criminal investigations into 19 current and former soldiers.
Benjamin Roberts-Smith, Australia’s most decorated serviceman when he left the SAS in 2013, has been accused by former colleagues of unlawful treatment of prisoners, including unlawful killings. The former sergeant, who was awarded the Victoria Cross and the Medal of Bravery for his service in Afghanistan, has denied any wrongdoing.
His defamation trial against newspapers The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Canberra Times ended in July 2022 but a verdict is still pending.
More than 39,000 Australian military personnel served in Afghanistan in the 20 years leading up to the 2021 withdrawal and 41 were killed there.