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.
Nine has agreed to settle a defamation lawsuit by former Liberal leader John Hewson alleging a report by A Current Affair about his insurance firm was gratuitous and “seriously dishonest”.
A judge has allowed four Afghan witnesses who allegedly saw Ben Roberts-Smith kick a handcuffed Afghan citizen off a cliff to give evidence remotely when the Australian war veteran’s defamation case against three newspapers heads to trial in June.
Nine-owned Fairfax will have to pay out over $2 million in legal fees after being hit with indemnity costs on top of a $280,000 judgment in its defamation spat with venture capitalist Dr Elaine Stead for its “Micawber-like” approach to the case.
Venture capitalist Dr Elaine Stead is seeking indemnity costs after being awarded $280,000 in her defamation case against Nine-owned Fairfax, which she accuses of rejecting several settlement offers with “bugger off letters” and engaging in a “petulant campaign” of media coverage post-judgment.