The Scotsman

Wife ‘overjoyed’ as marine to be freed over Taleban killing

- By JAN COLLEY

The wife of Royal Marine Alexander Blackman, who fatally shot an injured Taleban fighter in Afghanista­n, has spoken of her joy at the prospect of him coming home in 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.

Surrounded by veterans outside the Court Martial Appeal Court in London, she said: “We are overjoyed at the judges’ decision to significan­tly reduce Al’s sentence, such that he can be released imminently. 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 yesterday’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. Thecourtfo­und 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 said in their sentencing remarks that “this was a deliberate killing of a wounded man”.

0 Claire Blackman outside the Court Martial Appeal Court

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