Former SAS soldier Ben Roberts-Smith will not know of the full suite of war crimes allegations against him for months due to classified information included in the case.
The 47-year-old was arrested in April and charged with murdering or ordering the murders of five unarmed detainees while deployed in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012.
But the case against him is mired in delays stretching to September due to national security issues, Sydney's Downing Centre Local Court was told on Tuesday.
Crown prosecutor Chelsea Brain said Roberts-Smith could not be given the full brief of evidence against him until certain orders protecting sensitive information were made by the court.
The application over this top secret material was made by the federal government.
Roberts-Smith's solicitor Karen Espiner told the court that her client, crown prosecutors and the government would likely agree to how the classified documents should be handled.
Judge Susan Horan will have to be convinced the orders are necessary during a hearing in September.
Under the National Security Information Act, a judge can make orders around the disclosure, storage, protection, handling and destruction of classified material during a criminal matter.
Roberts-Smith has not entered pleas to any of the charges but has said he would use an upcoming trial to clear his name.
He was released on bail in April after his father Len Roberts-Smith - a former Western Australia Supreme Court judge - paid a $250,000 surety.
Australia's most decorated living soldier is accused of machine-gunning an Afghan prisoner Mohammed Essa and ordering the execution of his son Ahmadullah to "blood the rookie" during a raid at a compound called Whiskey 108 in April 2009.
Ahmadullah had a prosthetic leg.
The then-SAS soldier placed firearms on the bodies to falsely claim they were enemy combatants, court documents seen by AAP allege.
In August 2012 at the village of Darwan, Roberts-Smith is accused of kicking a hand-cuffed Ali Jan off a 10-metre cliff before ordering that he be dragged over a creek bed and shot.
Two months later at Syahchow, he allegedly lined up two prisoners in a corn field, shooting one of them with another soldier.
He ordered a subordinate to shoot the other before throwing a grenade on the bodies to cover up what he had done, court documents claim.
