Latest news with #OSI
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Yahoo
Airman accused of trafficking abducted Colorado teen
WICHITA FALLS (KFDX/KJTL) — Authorities arrested an airman from Sheppard Air Force Base on accusations of child trafficking after a multi-agency investigation into a teenage girl reportedly abducted from Colorado. Travis Robert Larson, of Flower Mound, was booked into the Wichita County Jail on Wednesday, June 11, 2025, and charged with trafficking of a child to engage in sexual conduct. As of the publication of this story, he remains jailed on a $500,000 bond. According to the affidavit, a special agent with the Criminal Investigations Division of the Texas Department of Public Safety was requested on June 2, 2025, to assist the FBI and the Office of Special Investigations at Sheppard Air Force Base with an investigation. The affidavit said the investigation was connected to a 14-year-old girl from Colorado who was abducted. The DPS investigator said law enforcement officials from Colorado learned the teenager had been transported by Larson to Sheppard AFB. Authorities said the child was located near Larson's dormitory room at Sheppard AFB by U.S. Air Force personnel, and Larson was detained. During an interview, Larson denied traveling to Colorado or communicating with the child, according to the affidavit. The affidavit said OSI agents interviewed the alleged child victim, who said she admitted to communicating with Larson through Snapchat. Authorities said the victim told them that she and Larson agreed to meet and made plans for Larson to bring her alcoholic beverages in Colorado Springs. According to authorities, the victim told OSI agents that on May 6, 2025, she and Larson met at a park and consumed alcoholic beverages. She said that Larson wanted to relocate due to the venue's access to other people, and she assumed he meant to another park. The affidavit said the victim told OSI agents that Larson instead began traveling south on the interstate. She said that she moved to the backseat and continued consuming alcoholic beverages. According to the affidavit, the victim told OSI agents that she and Larson arrived at Sheppard AFB and had sex. A forensic interview was later conducted on May 12. Authorities said during the forensic interview, the victim said she and Larson began communicating on Snapchat when she was 11 years old. She said she initially met Larson on May 5, and she believed she'd be returning to her residence. According to the affidavit, the victim told the forensic interviewer that when she objected to leaving with Larson in his vehicle, he became violent and put his hands around her throat to the point that she lost 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Sydney Morning Herald
29-05-2025
- Politics
- Sydney Morning Herald
War crimes investigator launches raids in major escalation
The elite anti-war crimes agency probing the involvement of ex-SAS soldiers in executions in Afghanistan conducted surprise raids in Perth on Wednesday as part of its ongoing investigations. It is the first time the Office of the Special Investigator (OSI) has launched raids on targets and amounts to a major escalation of its almost five-year inquiry into civilian deaths at the hands of Australian soldiers. The raids were confirmed by three official sources not permitted to speak publicly about the agency's work. It is not clear if the raids were connected to the OSI's examination of disgraced former soldier Ben Roberts-Smith, although detectives from the agency have spent months finalising the statements of witnesses who have agreed to testify against the disgraced war hero over his execution of prisoners and civilians. The OSI is examining suspected murders beyond the four cases that were part of the ex-soldier's failed bid to clear his name. Witness statements collected by the OSI also deal with attempts by Roberts-Smith to cover up his war crimes. The raids were welcomed by SAS veterans who served in Afghanistan and who believe Roberts-Smith and the small number of other soldiers who allegedly executed civilians and prisoners brought shame onto the special forces regiment and should be held to account. However, veterans who back the war crimes suspects turned to social media to attack the OSI actions, claiming the raids were unjust. One post claimed the war crimes investigators, who include some of Australia's most experienced homicide detectives, were trying to 'shake the tree' to find evidence. This masthead revealed last week that the OSI, which has been investigating war criminal Roberts-Smith over multiple murders, including cases not canvassed in his marathon defamation trial, has secured the co-operation of new witnesses. Roberts-Smith's comprehensive loss before the full bench of the Federal Court – which affirmed the finding that the Special Air Service Regiment veteran ordered the murder of four Afghans – paved the way for the OSI to prosecute the former corporal.
The Age
29-05-2025
- Politics
- The Age
War crimes investigator launches raids in major escalation
The elite anti-war crimes agency probing the involvement of ex-SAS soldiers in executions in Afghanistan conducted surprise raids in Perth on Wednesday as part of its ongoing investigations. It is the first time the Office of the Special Investigator (OSI) has launched raids on targets and amounts to a major escalation of its almost five-year inquiry into civilian deaths at the hands of Australian soldiers. The raids were confirmed by three official sources not permitted to speak publicly about the agency's work. It is not clear if the raids were connected to the OSI's examination of disgraced former soldier Ben Roberts-Smith, although detectives from the agency have spent months finalising the statements of witnesses who have agreed to testify against the disgraced war hero over his execution of prisoners and civilians. The OSI is examining suspected murders beyond the four cases that were part of the ex-soldier's failed bid to clear his name. Witness statements collected by the OSI also deal with attempts by Roberts-Smith to cover up his war crimes. The raids were welcomed by SAS veterans who served in Afghanistan and who believe Roberts-Smith and the small number of other soldiers who allegedly executed civilians and prisoners brought shame onto the special forces regiment and should be held to account. However, veterans who back the war crimes suspects turned to social media to attack the OSI actions, claiming the raids were unjust. One post claimed the war crimes investigators, who include some of Australia's most experienced homicide detectives, were trying to 'shake the tree' to find evidence. This masthead revealed last week that the OSI, which has been investigating war criminal Roberts-Smith over multiple murders, including cases not canvassed in his marathon defamation trial, has secured the co-operation of new witnesses. Roberts-Smith's comprehensive loss before the full bench of the Federal Court – which affirmed the finding that the Special Air Service Regiment veteran ordered the murder of four Afghans – paved the way for the OSI to prosecute the former corporal.
The Age
22-05-2025
- The Age
Investigators probe Ben Roberts-Smith over more murders and video drinking from dead man's prosthetic limb
The secretive agency investigating war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith over multiple murders, including cases not canvassed in his marathon defamation trial, has secured the co-operation of new witnesses. Amid the damning fresh evidence is footage of the disgraced ex-soldier swilling beer from the prosthetic leg of an Afghan man he executed. Roberts-Smith's comprehensive loss before the full bench of the Federal Court – which affirmed the finding that the Special Air Service Regiment veteran ordered the murder of four Afghans – paves the way for the Office of the Special Investigator (OSI) to move to prosecute the former corporal. The OSI is examining suspected murders beyond the four cases that were part of the ex-soldier's failed bid to clear his name. Five sources with knowledge of the OSI's ongoing four-year investigation said its investigators had secured co-operation from key witnesses who had not participated in Roberts-Smith's defamation trial. The OSI is working closely with the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions as it builds its case against Roberts-Smith, having collected statements from over a dozen SASR soldiers who claim Roberts-Smith arranged or participated in executions, including an incident in which he kicked a bound civilian off a small cliff. The OSI has also uncovered a video of Roberts-Smith drinking from the prosthetic leg of a man he had earlier executed during an Easter Sunday 2009 operation targeting a compound called Whiskey 108. The video was filmed in a makeshift bar called the Fat Lady's Arms at the Australian army base in southern Afghanistan and contradicts Roberts-Smith's evidence during his defamation trial when he told Justice Anthony Besanko he had never drunk from the plastic leg.
The Age
21-05-2025
- The Age
Ben Roberts-Smith: OSI uncovers new war crimes evidence, secures fresh witnesses
During his opening remarks at the start of the case, Roberts-Smith's barrister, Bruce McClintock, told the court: 'My client did not drink from the leg. The respondents have been desperately trying to find evidence that he did, but he never did.' When he was directly asked in court during cross-examination: 'Did you yourself drink from the leg?' , Roberts-Smith replied: 'No, I didn't.' However, the video uncovered by the OSI shows the disgraced soldier being passed the prosthetic leg before sculling from it during a party at the Fat Lady's Arms. Ben Roberts-Smith (left) with a former colleague drinking from the prosthetic leg of a dead Afghan man in 2012. On Tuesday, the full bench of the Federal Court released their judgment, explaining why they upheld Justice Besanko's 2023 decision that Roberts-Smith was complicit in the murder of four unarmed prisoners, including the man with the prosthetic leg, while deployed in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012. Federal Court justices Nye Perram, Anna Katzmann and Geoffrey Kennett found the evidence was sufficiently cogent to conclude that Roberts-Smith was a war criminal who had disgraced his country and the SASR, including by having machine-gunned the unarmed prisoner with a prosthetic leg outside Whiskey 108. The three senior judges said the latter finding was based on the compelling testimony of three of Roberts-Smith's fellow SASR soldiers. Loading 'The problem for [Roberts-Smith] is that, unlike most homicides, there were three eyewitnesses to this murder,' the three judges concluded. 'When all is said and done, it is a rare murder that is witnessed by three independent witnesses. This strength of this evidence cannot be erased, and is in no way undermined, by peripheral inconsistencies.' The appeal court also said that 'the killing of the man with the prosthetic leg in such a dramatic fashion does suggest a certain recklessness or perhaps even brazenness' on Roberts-Smith's part. While Roberts-Smith still denies wrongdoing, and has vowed to continue his legal fight to clear his name by challenging the four judges' findings in the High Court, the revelation the OSI has also secured the co-operation of witnesses who did not testify in the defamation trial, or gave only limited testimony, is a blow to the disgraced ex-soldier and former Seven West Media executive. The OSI is staffed with elite detectives from state police forces, including handpicked homicide investigators. Sources said its inquiries had proceeded far more slowly than the agency had hoped, but this was due to a painstakingly exhaustive and risk-averse approach adopted by OSI chief, former top prosecutor and judge Mark Weinberg. Weinberg has sought to avoid the legal pitfalls that led to the abandonment in 2021 of an earlier federal police war crimes investigation targeting Roberts-Smith. The OSI is working with the AFP to target Roberts-Smith and has secured more evidence and witness co-operation than the stymied federal police probe. The OSI probe is not only aimed at seeking to prosecute Roberts-Smith but several of his accomplices who, like the disgraced war hero, were also found to have lied during the defamation proceedings to cover up war crimes. Loading Billionaire Gina Rinehart emerged this week as Roberts-Smith's latest mega-wealthy public supporter, describing him as 'brave and patriotic' and claiming the reporting of his actions in Afghanistan as weakening the defence forces. Her statement has angered SASR veterans who believe the mining magnate's defence of the war criminal is misguided and offensive to Australian veterans who repeatedly deployed to Afghanistan and are against the execution of civilians and prisoners. 'If Rinehart has read the full court's judgment, she must know it was other regiment blokes that are the ones that have stood up against his [Roberts-Smith's] crimes. There is nothing honourable about kicking an Afghan farmer off a cliff,' one SASR insider who served alongside Roberts-Smith said. A second SASR insider who also served in Afghanistan said he believed Rinehart's advocacy was at odds with 'the views of most Australians who don't want their soldiers executing civilians or prisoners'. 'We don't do that,' the SASR veteran said, claiming that Roberts-Smith's decision to spend millions of dollars on defamation proceedings had brought untold 'trauma' for soldiers subsequently caught up in his legal fight. Rinehart has refused to say if she is funding Roberts-Smith's ongoing legal battles, with his former employer, Channel Seven owner Kerry Stokes, no longer footing the war criminal's bill. Rinehart was approached for comment.
