Australia's most decorated living soldier, Ben Roberts-Smith, will remain in custody for at least a week after he was dramatically arrested and charged with two counts of the war crime of murder and three counts of aiding or abetting the same charge.
Roberts-Smith did not appear at a brief, online NSW Bail Division Court hearing on Wednesday, when his lawyers did not apply for his release after an aborted bid to move the case to another court.
The Victoria Cross recipient, who has consistently denied the allegations, was arrested at Sydney Airport a day earlier.
The case is listed for a bail review at the Downing Centre Local Court on April 17, when Roberts-Smith can apply for his release.
While the case makes its way through court, Afghans in Australia hope the allegations will shine a spotlight on the horrors experienced in their homeland for decades.
"This will be an example to the world that if Australia could take an individual who is alleged to commit a crime ... other countries should follow the same procedure," Afghan community member Zaki Haidari told AAP.
The refugee advocate, who works for Amnesty International Australia, hoped proceedings would provide transparency about how foreign forces acted in wartime.
"What we want to see from NATO and the US and its allies is some accountability, and some rule of law when they are engaging with civilians on the ground, and that includes prisoners of war," Mr Haidari said.
Alleged mistreatment of civilians by Western soldiers has long been used as a recruiting tool by the Taliban, he added.
Mr Haidari also called for reparations to the families of alleged victims to be a high priority in the event of a successful prosecution.
Roberts-Smith, 47, is accused of murdering unarmed civilians while deployed in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012.
It is alleged three victims were shot by subordinate members of the ADF, in the presence of, and acting on the orders of Roberts-Smith.
While the decorated veteran's courtroom travails began in 2018 when he unsuccessfully sued Nine newspapers for defamation, legal experts said his case moving to the criminal jurisdiction could be a watershed for war crime prosecutions in Australia.
The prospect of a criminal trial for alleged offences committed overseas in the theatre of war was almost unprecedented in modern times, former president of the Australian Human Rights Commission Gillian Triggs said.
"It's a very technical area of law and we have had very few examples in Australian national practice that would provide some precedents," Prof Triggs told AAP.
She said Australia's failed prosecutions of multiple alleged Nazi war criminals in the 1990s prompted authorities to be extremely cautious before launching criminal action.
But with two men now charged for alleged war crimes committed in Afghanistan, the floodgates of prosecutions might now be ready to open.
Another former SAS soldier, Oliver Schulz, was charged in 2023 with the war crime of the murder of a young man in Afghanistan in 2012.
He has also maintained his innocence.
However, before the Roberts-Smith case proceeded to any potential trial, Australian prosecutors would need to solve some complex problems, an international law expert said.
"A long time has passed, so that delay itself can create challenges in terms of collecting reliable evidence," University of Queensland international law professor Rain Liivoja said.
"The fact that the alleged crimes were committed overseas, and indeed in a location to which there is no easy access, makes the collection of evidence even more difficult."
A Federal Court judge previously found Roberts-Smith was responsible for a number of killings based on the balance of probabilities, rather than the criminal standard of beyond reasonable doubt.
16°C