The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Court overturns Marine A’s murder conviction
Royal Marine has sentence reduced to manslaughter
caThy gordon A Royal Marine who fatally shot an injured Taliban fighter in Afghanistan was suffering from an “abnormality of mental functioning” at the time of the killing, an appeal court has ruled.
As five judges reduced Sergeant Alexander Blackman’s murder conviction to manslaughter, they found that the 2011 incident was not a “coldblooded execution”, as a court martial had earlier concluded, but the result of a mental illness – an “adjustment disorder”.
Blackman, 42, from Taunton, Somerset, had his murder conviction overturned by the Court Martial Appeal Court in London and replaced with a verdict of “manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility”.
There will now be a further hearing, at a date to be fixed, to decide on the sentence he now has to serve.
Blackman – who was not present for the ruling – was convicted in November 2013 by a court martial in Bulford, Wiltshire, and sentenced to life with a minimum term of 10 years. That term was later reduced to eight years because of the combat stress disorder he was suffering from.
After the latest decision in the case was announced by Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas yesterday, Blackman’s wife Claire said she was “delighted”, adding: “This is a crucial decision and one which better reflects the circumstances my husband found himself in during that terrible tour in Afghanistan.”
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 his deployment.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said: “We have fully cooperated with each stage of Sergeant Blackman’s case, which has now involved a criminal investigation, a court martial and the appeal process, and will continue to provide personal support to the family, as we have done since charges were first brought.”