A ROYAL Marine who is in prison for the fatal shooting of a Taliban fighter in Afghanistan should now be freed, leading judges have heard.
The plea for the release of Sergeant Alexander Blackman was made by his QC at the start of a sentencing hearing yesterday in London.
A panel of five judges at the Court Martial Appeal Court are due to sentence Blackman for diminished responsibility manslaughter, following the recent decision by the court to overturn his murder conviction for the 2011 killing.
Blackman, 42, from Taunton in Somerset, watched the proceedings via video link from prison.
His wife Claire and a large number of supporters – who had earlier waved banners outside the Royal Courts of Justice appealing for Blackman to be freed – sat in the packed public gallery.
Jonathan Goldberg, making submissions in mitigation, told Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas and the other judges that “at the forefront of our submission is the plea that he should be released today”.
He said that “the incarceration of almost three and a half years which he has already served “is already too much for his crime”.
The judges had previously ruled Blackman was suffering from an
“abnormality of mental functioning” at the time of the incident.
When the court overturned the murder conviction, the judges found
the incident was not a “cold-blooded execution” – as a court martial had earlier concluded – but the result of a mental illness – an “adjustment disorder”.
Blackman was convicted of murder in November 2013 by a court martial in Bulford, Wiltshire, and sentenced to life.
The 10-year with a minimum term of 10 years.It was later reduced to eight years on appeal, because of the combat stress disorder he was suffering from at the time of the killing in Helmand province while serving with Plymouth-based 42 Commando.
The judges said that 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 that 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.
After the hearing, Mrs Blackman said they had hoped for an immediate decision, but would “patiently await” a ruling
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article