“They came out,obviously very frightened,one had a distinctive limp,that’s the person with the prosthetic leg… he was lifting his trouser,sort of pointing to the prosthetic leg,expecting some sort of sympathy from the troops,” Person 40 told the court.
He said the men were searched and “marched off to another area” for what he assumed was tactical questioning by Mr Roberts-Smith and a second soldier,Person 35. He later heard machine gun fire and saw the man with the prosthetic leg had been killed.
Person 40 was called on Wednesday to give evidence forThe Age,The Sydney Morning Herald andThe Canberra Times in the defamation suit filed against the mastheads by Mr Roberts-Smith.
He told the court that another soldier,dubbed Person 29,told him “out of the blue” last year after he was subpoenaed to give evidence in the trial that “RS knows you’re going to be a witness for this defamation case”.
He said Person 29 went on to say “words to the effect of,‘you don’t have to be a witness if you ... speak to RS’s lawyers,they’ll get you to sign some sort of a piece of paper and you won’t have to act as a witness’.”
Person 40 said he was “very surprised” by the conversation.
“I sort of said,‘yep,okay.’ His other comment at the end was,‘If you don’t,he’ll see you in court.’”