A former SAS soldier and accused war criminal requires assessment by police checking in on him while on bail because his military training presents a physical danger, a court has heard.
Oliver Jordan Schulz, 42, is expected to be able to fly to Perth to visit his lawyers after a bail variation hearing at Sydney's Downing Centre Local Court on Monday.
Crown prosecutor Sean Flood said Western Australian police would have to conduct risk assessments to gauge the safety of their officers when attending Schulz's address in Perth.
He said the former SAS soldier's background as a "highly trained former military officer" meant he was in a better position to engage in "hand-to-hand combat".
“I would say that a person of his training has a much better physical capacity to undertake that sort of violence than any member of the public who doesn’t have training," he told Magistrate Brett Shields.
Mr Flood said if bail was granted to allow Schulz to fly to Perth, the same conditions currently imposed in NSW, including daily reporting to police and a curfew, should be in place in WA.
This was because the ex-soldier posed a flight risk, the prosecutor said.
Schulz watched the bail hearing by video link wearing a black jacket and dark red shirt from inside a residential home.
His lawyer Karen Espiner, who also attended court remotely from her Perth office, said conditions could be imposed to address any concerns the court had.
After Ms Espiner clarified her client would be staying at a Perth hotel and nowhere else, Mr Shields said he was inclined to grant the bail variation.
The magistrate also said he was inclined to change Schulz's bail conditions to allow him to travel from his current location in rural NSW to Sydney for medical reasons.
He will hand down his decision on Friday.
Schulz is accused of approaching Dad Mohammad in a wheat field in Afghanistan's Uruzgan Province and then firing three shots at the 25- or 26-year-old while he was on his back with his hands and knees raised.
Mr Mohammad's father later complained to the Australian Defence Force, alleging his son had been shot in the head.
The ex-soldier was arrested in March 2023 and released on bail a week later after a magistrate found he faced a high risk from Taliban attack if he remained behind bars.
Schulz was the first former or serving defence force member to be charged with a war crime-related murder, investigators said in March.
There were about 40 investigations under way as part of an Australian Federal Police and Office of the Special Investigator joint probe into potential war crimes in Afghanistan, documents tendered in a Federal Court civil case previously showed.
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