Royal Marine has Taliban murder conviction reduced to manslaughter
Judges made the decision on the ground of diminished responsibility.
A Royal Marine who shot an injured Taliban fighter in Afghanistan has won an appeal against his murder conviction.
Sergeant Alexander Blackman, 42, from Taunton, Somerset, had the conviction quashed by five judges at the Court Martial Appeal Court in London.
They replaced it with manslaughter on the ground 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 in the packed courtroom on Wednesday, was convicted in November 2013 by a court martial in Bulford, Wiltshire, and sentenced to life with a minimum term of 10 years.
The minimum term was later reduced to eight years because of the combat stress disorder he was suffering from.
His wife Claire Blackman 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 decision was announced by the Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas.
At a hearing in February the judges were urged to overturn Blackman’s “unsafe” murder conviction on the basis of “uncontradicted” evidence from three psychiatrists that he was suffering from a mental illness – an adjustment disorder – at the time of the killing.
They heard that at the time of the 2011 incident, he was serving with Plymouth-based 42 Commando in Helmand province in “ghastly” conditions which were a “breeding ground” for mental health problems.
In Wednesday’s ruling, the judges said Blackman had been “an exemplary soldier before his deployment to Afghanistan in March 2011”.
They ruled: “The appellant suffered from quite exceptional stressors … during the time of that deployment which increasingly impacted on him the longer he was in command at CP Omar.”
The judges said it was “clear that a consequence was that he had developed a hatred for the Taliban and a desire for revenge”.
At the time of the killing “the patrol remained under threat from other insurgents”.
The judges said: “Given his prior exemplary conduct, we have concluded that it was the combination of the stressors, the other matters to which we have referred and his adjustment disorder that substantially impaired his ability to form a rational judgment.”
