'Marine A' Has To Wait Until Tuesday To Learn Fate

A decision on a new sentence for Royal Marine Alexander Blackman for the manslaughter of an injured Taliban fighter in Afghanistan will now be announced on Tuesday by the Court Martial Appeal Court.

Earlier his legal team urged judges to free him, as the former Sergeant has already served almost three and a half years.

However, after hearing mitigation on his behalf, the five judges announced that they will communicate their decision on Tuesday 28 March.

There was a huge sigh of disappointment from his supporters when the announcement was made.

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".

Speaking to the press outside the court, Claire said:

"We are obviously disappointed not to have a decision today, but we understand the judges wish to consider this important matter with great care. We will patiently await their ruling."

When speaking on behalf of her husband’s behalf in the witness box, Claire said that the arrest was a "huge shock", but dismissal with grace was "the hardest aspect of the whole episode to bear":

"I've always said that if you cut my husband in half, it would say Royal Marine all the way through him. It has been his life, his love, it is a career he excelled at. To take that away so abruptly was the most difficult thing."

After the hearing, Blackman smiled and waved at his supporters before the courtroom was cleared to allow him a brief, private word with his wife.

People travelled from all over the country to show their support, filling up the public gallery in the court and waving banners outside. Jeff Williams, a former Royal Marine and one of Blackman's most devoted supporters (seen below, fourth from left), said "it’s been three and a half years of frustration":

"I don't feel that Al has been given the respect he deserves for what he has done for the country after 15 years of service (…) I think I am qualified to say that we haven't done out country any favours."

The judges had previously ruled that 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 that 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 with a minimum term of 10 years.

That term 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 with a 9mm pistol before quoting a phrase from Shakespeare as the man convulsed and died in front of him.

He told him:

''There you are. Shuffle off this mortal coil, you c***. It's nothing you wouldn't do to us.''

He then turned to comrades and said:

''Obviously this doesn't go anywhere, fellas. I just broke the Geneva Convention.''

The shooting was captured on a camera mounted on the helmet of another Royal Marine.

During his trial, Blackman, who denied murder and was known at that stage as Marine A, said he believed the victim was already dead and he was taking out his anger on a corpse.