Decorated SAS veteran is arrested as part of a war crimes investigation into the murder of an Afghan man in a wheat field
- Police arrested an SAS veteran for alleged war crime
- Oliver Schulz allegedly shot an unarmed Afghan man in the field
- The arrest comes after a two-year investigation into a TV show
A decorated SAS veteran has been arrested by police investigating alleged war crimes committed by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan after a two-year investigation.
Video footage of former police officer Oliver Schulz, 41, allegedly shooting an Afghan man in a wheat field in Uruzgan province, southern Afghanistan in 2012, aired on Killing Fields, an episode of Four Corners from ABC in 2020.
Australian Federal Police are understood to have arrested Schulz at an address in Goulburn in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales on Monday morning.
The footage showed Australian SAS troops allegedly shooting an unarmed Afghan man in a field.
Schulz, who received the Commendation for Bravery for his service in Afghanistan, is now expected to be the first member of the Australian Defense Force to be charged with a war crime under Australian law.
The Office of the Special Investigator, believed to be made up of homicide detectives and an intelligence officer, was created in 2021 to investigate alleged war crimes.
It followed a consultation of the Australian Defense Force Inspector General Inquiry led by Paul Brereton, a Major General in the Army Reserve and a New South Wales Supreme Court Justice.
“A joint investigation between the Office of the Special Investigator (OSI) and the AFP has today resulted in the arrest of a man from New South Wales,” AFP confirmed in a statement.
He is expected to be charged with one count of War Crime – Murder under subsection 268.70(1) of the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth).
Investigators arrested the man, 41, in the NSW region this morning and he is expected to appear in a local NSW court later today (Monday).
It will be alleged that he murdered an Afghan man while deployed to Afghanistan with the Australian Defense Force.
‘The maximum penalty for a War Crime—Murder Crime is life imprisonment.’
Oliver Schulz (pictured), who received the Commendation for Bravery for his service in Afghanistan, is expected to be the first member of the Australian Defense Force to be charged with a war crime under Australian law.
The statement added: ‘OSI and AFP are working together to investigate allegations of violations of the Laws of Armed Conflict by Australian Defense Force personnel in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016.
“As the matter will be before the court and the investigation is ongoing, no further comment will be made.”
