17,500 Orders Won’t Pay for Ben Roberts-Smith’s War-Crimes Defence

The video opens in a gym. Ben Roberts-Smith is working out beside Chris Katelaris, and across the screen run the words “Zero Limits Supplements x Epic 1 Two”.

The Guardian reported the collaboration on Saturday. Zero Limits had sold a pre-workout called “War Crimes”, in a flavour named Kill or Capture Cola, its label showing a hooded captive and a masked figure in military-style clothing beside an Australian flag. Roberts-Smith wasn’t shown endorsing it. He praised a different Zero Limits product in an Instagram story and sat for the company’s podcast, episode 262. Zero Limits and Katelaris didn’t answer the Guardian’s questions through a lawyer.

Roberts-Smith launched EPIC 1 TWO on 16 October, named for his SAS call sign from the June 2010 battle at Tizak, where his actions won him the Victoria Cross. The first week brought more than 17,500 orders, 230,000 website visits and 75,000 Instagram followers, according to news.com.au. T-shirts cost $49. The Underdog hoodie is $85, with 10 per cent off for military personnel. The best-known item is a black T-shirt printed with the photograph of his arrest at Sydney Airport, the words “Spirit of Australia” visible on the Qantas plane behind him. He told his subscribers he had no idea the images would capture those three words. On the Zero Limits podcast he said the call sign “stands for” the underdog idea, and that the brand was a way to give supporters something to wear for their support rather than ask for donations.

Roberts-Smith has already lost one case that cost upwards of $30 million. He sued three newspapers for defamation in 2018. Justice Anthony Besanko dismissed the case in June 2023 after a 110-day trial, finding the papers had proved the substantial truth of the central allegations. Roberts-Smith told the Sydney radio host Ben Fordham that Kerry Stokes, the Seven Network owner who backed him, had spent “upwards of $30 million” on the case. Stokes had also agreed to pay the newspapers’ costs on an indemnity basis. The bill was then put at $16 million, with interest running at 10.1 per cent a year. The Full Court dismissed the appeal in May 2025. The High Court refused special leave that September. Roberts-Smith was ordered to pay about 95 per cent of Nine’s costs.

The Afghanistan Inquiry Legal Assistance Scheme pays the reasonable costs of legal representation for current and former defence members facing Afghanistan-related criminal proceedings. The department doesn’t pay full commercial rates. Its schedule caps what it will pay. Roberts-Smith has sought funding under the scheme, and he told Fordham his lawyers are paid for six hours a day while the prosecution’s lawyers are paid for ten, though whether he has received a grant is not public. “There is no parity, and that’s not what justice is about,” he said.

At the listed prices, 17,500 orders were worth between about $860,000 and $1.5 million if each order held a single item, before manufacturing, shipping, marketing or anything else was paid for. The label discloses neither costs nor profit. Set against a last case that cost upwards of $30 million, the first week’s takings at their best are about a twentieth of that bill. The brand would have to sell at that pace for months to match one lost defamation case, and the criminal case hasn’t started.

In the civil case, Besanko found on the balance of probabilities that Roberts-Smith had murdered or been complicit in the murder of unarmed Afghan men at Whiskey 108, Darwan and Chinartu, and that bullying and assaults on detainees were proved. Syahchow and Fasil were not proved. Those are civil findings, not a conviction. The criminal case charges five counts of war crime-murder under section 268.70(1) of the Criminal Code, each carrying life imprisonment, and Roberts-Smith denies all of them: two dated 12 April 2009, one 11 September 2012, two 20 October 2012. Two of the five counts are dated 20 October 2012, the date of the Syahchow mission, the one the civil court didn’t find proved. The Crown must prove each count beyond reasonable doubt, to all twelve jurors.

Michele Mattiuzzi, posting on LinkedIn, told her readers to “buy a shirt, buy a hoodie, a cap, grab something for a mate or family member or even just buy something and stick it in the cupboard to show your support for Ben.” Gary Chaffey, an infantry veteran writing on the same platform, drew a different line: “Nobody’s breaking a rule. Blokes can sell shirts and mates can back their mates.” But, he wrote, “‘Spirit of Australia’ is a powerful phrase, and it belongs to the thousands who served and came home quietly. It doesn’t belong to any one man’s defence.” Mattiuzzi treats the purchase as the support; Chaffey, a veteran himself, treats the symbol as shared property. The prosecution’s case is five counts with dates and a life maximum, and the civil findings stand while the criminal case waits years.

Orders under the National Security Information Act have to be worked through before the prosecution can fully serve its brief of evidence. The court made 206 of them on 1 September. The matter is next listed at the Downing Centre Local Court on 8 December. Hearings about publication restrictions are scheduled for August 2027, and Roberts-Smith has acknowledged the trial may be more than five years away.

On the EPIC 1 TWO site, the first drop is listed as pre-order, and one item is already marked sold out. The site calls the label “for the underdog who refuses to stay down.”