THE LIONESS!
Wife’s victory to free jailed marine husband
The wife of Royal Marine Alexander Blackman, who fatally shot an injured Taliban fighter in Afghanistan, has spoken of her joy at the prospect of him coming home in a few weeks.
Claire Blackman said she was “overjoyed” after judges sentenced her husband to seven years for diminished responsibility manslaughter – meaning that because of time already served he could be freed next month.
Mrs Blackman was described by her husband’s barrister Jonathan Goldberg as ‘the lioness who inspired us throughout’.
And she was given a ‘three cheers’ and a bagpipes salute from marines who popped champagne corks, drank from hipflasks and planted kisses on her cheek.
Surrounded by scores of veterans outside the Court Martial Appeal Court in London, Mrs Blackman said: “We are overjoyed at the judges’ decision to significantly reduce Al’s sentence, such that he can be released imminently.
Fighting
“This is the moment that we have all been fighting hard for. It is hard to believe that this day is finally here.”
A panel of five judges, headed by Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas, sentenced Blackman, 42, from Taunton in Somerset, to the term of seven years following the recent quashing of his murder conviction for the 2011 killing.
Announcing the decision, Lord Thomas said: “As with any person sentenced to a determinate term, his release will ordinarily be at the halfway point of the sentence.”
Blackman, who watched Tuesday’s proceedings via video link, has already spent almost three-and-a-half years in prison following his original conviction in November 2013 after the death of the insurgent.
One of Blackman’s legal team indicated he would probably be released in about two weeks, but the decision on the exact date was for the Prison Service to determine.
The Court Martial Appeal Court ruled previously that Blackman was suffering from an “abnormality of mental functioning” at the time of the 2011 killing when he was serving with Plymouth-based 42 Commando.
Illness
The court found the incident was not a “coldblooded execution” as a court martial had earlier concluded, but the result of a mental illness, an “adjustment disorder”.
The judges said Blackman had been “an exemplary soldier” before his deployment to Afghanistan in March 2011, but had “suffered from quite exceptional stressors” during that deployment.
They found his ability to “form a rational judgment” was “substantially impaired”.
Blackman shot the insurgent, who had been seriously injured in an attack by an Apache helicopter, in the chest at close range with a 9mm pistol before quoting a phrase from Shakespeare as the man convulsed and died in front of him.
The judges also concluded that Blackman should be dismissed from the service, but not with disgrace.