He's Australia's most decorated soldier. Now he's at the centre of a historic war crimes case

One of the most significant moments in Australian military history unfolded without fanfare on a tarmac at Sydney airport, when Ben Roberts-Smith was calmly escorted off a plane and into a waiting police car.The country's most-decorated living soldier and the most famous of his generation, Roberts-Smith was on Tuesday charged with five counts of the war crime of murder.It follows a high-profile civil defamation case, which three years ago found that the former Special Air Service (SAS) corporal and Victoria Cross recipient had unlawfully killed several unarmed Afghan detainees.Roberts-Smith, who left the Australian Defence Force (ADF) in 2013, denies all wrongdoing and says the allegations are "egregious" and driven by spiteful and jealous peers.His case – now set to be tested to a higher, criminal standard – has become the face of Australia's reckoning over the country's alleged conduct in Afghanistan, which has cast a pall over its much-mythologised military legacy."For Roberts-Smith to now be charged with war crimes - and not just one, but multiple war crimes - is a very significant cultural and social moment for a country that, for much of its history… has placed a lot of store in the exploits and contributions of the members of its defence forces," Professor Donald Rothwell told the BBC.But the prosecution of such a highly-decorated veteran is also an extraordinary moment for the globe."We've never seen this before," says Deane-Peter Baker, a special forces ethics scholar.