Image source, Getty Images Image caption,

Australian forces were deployed in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021

By Simon Atkinson

BBC News, Australia

A former Australian SAS soldier has been charged with murder, following an investigation into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan.

Oliver Schulz, 41, is the first Australian serviceman or veteran to be charged with a war crime under Australian law.

The offence carries a maximum sentence of life in jail.

He was arrested on Monday in regional New South Wales (NSW), and will face a court on Tuesday.

The Australia Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) says Mr Schulz is the person referred to as Soldier C in a 2020 ABC Four Corners documentary exposing alleged war crimes.

Footage showed Soldier C shooting an Afghan man in a wheat field in Uruzgan Province in southern Afghanistan in 2012.

The investigation was carried out by the Office of the Special Investigator (OSI), the body set up to investigate alleged war crimes following a four-year inquiry led by an Army Reserve major general and NSW Supreme Court judge Paul Brereton.