Civilians can never understand the horror says peer
A LIBERAL Democrat peer yesterday said those who convicted Alexander Blackman did not understand the ‘hell and horrors of the front line’.
Lord Burnett, a royal Marine commando for seven years, said the court martial which found the sergeant guilty of murder for shooting a wounded Taliban gunman was flawed.
He praised the campaign for justice, and called on the Government to immediately release the 50-page report into what went wrong on the battlefield in Afghanistan.
Today MPs will address Sgt Blackman’s case in a debate secured by Tory MP richard Drax, who is campaigning to overturn the murder conviction.
Lord Burnett, who has visited Sgt Blackman in prison, said he was ‘the victim of a terrible miscarriage of justice’.
He told peers in a debate yesterday: ‘He believes he shot a dead man. That is an offence against the Geneva Convention, that is desecrating a dead body. But it is not murder.’
A Daily Mail investigation has revealed how key evidence was blocked from being heard at
‘Not heard a shot fired in anger’
the court martial, whose panel found Sgt Blackman guilty of murder by a majority of five to two. Lord Burnett, who is a solicitor and former MP, said the panel could have found Sgt Blackman not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter. But this was never raised by the judge or his defence team despite the ‘extraordinary mitigating circumstances’.
He added: ‘It also appears a number of members of the panel had not served on active service nor had ever heard a shot fired in anger. That goes against the entire ethos of courts martial. You are supposed to be tried by your peers who fully understand, through experience, all the surrounding circumstances.
‘No one who has not served in the hell and horrors of the front line in Afghanistan or similar war conditions can hope to appreciate the stresses, pressures, exhaustion, dangers which will afflict even the strongest human being.’
Defence minister earl Howe yesterday insisted that Sgt Blackman had already appealed against his sentence and had it reduced from ten years to eight.
He said it would be ‘improper’ for the Ministry of Defence to express a view on the marine’s guilt or innocence.