Death in Darwan: the day that could decide the Ben Roberts-Smith defamation trial

It was 11.09am.

It is the fourth death in Darwan that day that has become the centrepiece of a sprawling, complex and fiercely contested defamation case brought by Roberts-Smith against three newspapers. Evidence in the case will conclude next week.

The newspapers say their reporting is true. Roberts-Smith denies all wrongdoing.

The fourth man killed that day was reportedly a farmer called Ali Jan. The newspapers allege Roberts-Smith kicked him off a cliff into a dry creek bed, before ordering two subordinates to drag the badly injured man into a nearby cornfield.

There, it is alleged, he ordered one of the soldiers to shoot Ali Jan dead.

A radio, taken from the man killed across the river, was allegedly planted on his body.

Nine witnesses have given evidence to the federal court about what they saw, and what they did.

Their testimonies may prove the key contest in this trial.

Hanifa described in detail his memory of the day.

Hanifa said he and Ali Jan were leading donkeys to the mountains to collect firewood when the soldiers arrived by helicopter, firing shots that sent them retreating back to a guesthouse in the village, where they sat and waited.

Hanifa said a military dog arrived first, which frightened his daughter. Hanifa said he was holding his daughter when the Australian troops walked up to their compound: one soldier grabbed him by the neck and tied his hands behind his back, he said.

The court heard evidence that Ali Jan laughed at Roberts-Smith twice while he was being interrogated.

Now discharged from the military, the SAS soldier anonymised before the court as Person 4, testified he was standing at the corner of the neighbouring compound when he turned back towards the detained Afghan men.

Person 4 said after the kick he followed Roberts-Smith and Person 11 down a zigzagging footpath carved into the side of the cliff that led to the creek bed.

Person 4 said the man was still alive when the soldiers reached him.

Person 4 testified that he and Person 11 followed an order from Roberts-Smith to drag the man across the creek bed underneath a tree, where he was brought to a standing position. Person 4 said he began to walk away towards the helicopter landing zone from where troops would be flown back to their Tarin Kowt base.

Person 4 identified the man as the one he had seen kicked off the cliff.

The blood is comprehensive, except for a clean, thin stripe on his wrist: evidence, the newspapers have alleged, that Ali Jan was in handcuffs when he was killed.

Ben Roberts-Smith and Person 11 say that version of events could not have happened.

Roberts-Smith said he scrambled to support his comrade.

He told the court by the time he climbed the embankment Person 11 was firing on a man in the cornfield.

Roberts-Smith said the man was a clear threat to the Australian troops.

Person 11, called as a witness by Roberts-Smith, backed his version of events. He said no fighting-aged males were detained in the final compounds at Darwan, and no prisoners were kicked off a cliff.

At a distance of a decade, discrepancies in memory are inevitable. But the court faces a stark choice of two irreconcilable versions of how the fourth man died at Darwan that day. Which one they believe may prove crucial in determining the outcome of the case.