Federal Court Justice Anthony Besanko says he will allow four Afghan villagers and a person with the Australian Defence Force to give evidence remotely from overseas in the defamation case of a Special Air Service Regimen (SAS) veteran.
Ben Roberts-Smith is suing The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Canberra Times over a series of articles which he said wrongly suggest he disgraced the Australian Army while serving overseas.
The villagers from Darwan are expected to give evidence about the alleged murder of a man in 2012.
In Mr Roberts-Smith's statement of claim, the former SAS soldier said the articles were defamatory because they portrayed him as someone who "broke the moral and legal rules of military engagement".
The articles contained allegations that the decorated former soldier was involved in the murder of a handcuffed Afghan civilian named Ali Jan, who he allegedly kicked off a cliff while in Uruzgan Province in September 2012.
The Afghanistan veteran has strenuously denied what he calls "false allegations" made about him, which he says have "compounded" the defamation of him and are "completely without any foundation in truth".
In his ruling today, Justice Besanko said two of the witnesses - one claiming to be a nephew and the other a cousin of Ali Jan - will claim that they had been detained and interrogated by Australian soldiers in Darwan.
The nephew will also claim that "he saw the applicant kick Ali Jan off the small cliff".
They both claim to have heard gunshots.
The judgment states that the court will also hear from another witness who claims that "he saw a big soldier kick Ali Jan off a cliff".
"He claims that a short time later he heard gun shots. He claims that he saw Ali Jan's dead body with a gunshot(s) wound to the face."
Another Afghan witness is expected to claim "that she saw a person she was told was Ali Jan kicked off a cliff by a soldier. Shortly afterwards she heard gunshots."
Justice Besanko has directed there be an interpreter in the Sydney courtroom when they give evidence at the trial, which is due to start in June.
The trial will take place in Sydney and is expected to take six to eight weeks.
