Nine

Ben Roberts-Smith has admitted that he owns a glass replica of the prosthetic leg belonging to a man he killed in Afghanistan, as trial in his defamation case entered its third week.

Ben Roberts-Smith has been accused of “inventing stories” to conceal facts that would support publisher Fairfax’s version of events concerning war crimes allegedly committed by the former SAS soldier in Afghanistan.

Accused war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith has told a court it was “more than reasonable” for him to assume an unarmed Afghan man was a hostile insurgent because he saw another soldier shoot at the man first.

Ben Roberts-Smith used burner phones to call SAS colleagues after growing fearful that members of the media were listening into his phone calls after a series of articles were published in 2018 that accused him of war crimes and domestic violence, a court has heard.

Former Victoria Labor politician Adem Somyurek has hit Nine with a defamation lawsuit over a 60 Minutes segment and two articles that appeared in The Age that accused him of corruption and branch stacking and branded him the 'factional kingpin' of the Australian Labor Party.

Former SAS soldier Ben Roberts-Smith has told a court that he hired a private investigator to find out whether a woman who has accused him of domestic violence had an abortion and to obtain the home addresses of six SAS soldiers set to give evidence in his defamation trial.

War veteran Ben Roberts-Smith has said that while he was proud to have received the Victoria Cross for his actions at the 2010 battle of Tizak in Afghanistan, winning the award "put a target" on his back, with fellow soldiers seeking to undermine those they saw as tall poppies.

SAS soldier Ben Roberts-Smith has lost a bid to shield his medical records from three publishers less than a week before his high-profile defamation case kicks off in the Federal Court.

War veteran Ben Roberts-Smith "wiped" a laptop last month containing possible national secrets found on USB sticks retrieved from his former home, the judge overseeing the former soldier's defamation case against three publishers has heard.

War veteran Ben Roberts-Smith is seeking all "covert recordings" held by Nine and revealed in a number of news publications last month in which the former soldier said it was his "sole mission" to destroy the journalists behind allegedly defamatory articles accusing him of war crimes.