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The 2011 Helmand Province incident was the killing, on 15 September 2011,〔 of an injured Taliban insurgent by Royal Marines.〔 Three Royal Marines, known during their trial as Marines A, B, and C, were anonymously tried by court-martial. On 8 November 2013,〔〔〔 Marines B and C were acquitted,〔〔 but Marine A was found guilty of the murder of the Afghan combatant,〔 in contravention of section 42 of the Armed Forces Act 2006.〔 This made him the first British soldier to be convicted of a battlefield murder whilst serving abroad since the Second World War.〔 On 5 December,〔 Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas and two other High Court judges lifted the existing anonymity order on Marine A, allowing him to be named as Sergeant Alexander Wayne Blackman.〔 On 6 December, Blackman was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 10 years,〔 and dismissed with disgrace from the British Armed Forces.〔 On 22 May 2014, the Court of Appeal reduced his minimum term to 8 years.〔 On 19 December 2013, the anonymity order on Marines B and C was also lifted by the Court, and they were named as Corporal Christopher Glyn Watson and Marine Jack Alexander Hammond.〔 On 27 October 2015, the Ministry of Defence banned a large number of serving soldiers from attending a rally in support of Sergeant Blackman, saying that the event was a 'political protest'. However, lawyers representing the rally organisers stated that was not the case, rather, the event was 'a show of support to one of our fellow Royal Marines and not a 'political protest.' A related online government petition raised over 100,000 signatures calling for Sergeant Blackman's immediate release stating that the soldier had been condemned for defending his country. Within hours of the MOD's decision Michael Fallon, Minister for Defence, put out a government statement saying that the UK would maintain military operations in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future. == Murder == The incident took place in Helmand Province during Operation Herrick 14,〔 part of the British effort in the War in Afghanistan. Blackman, of 42 Commando, Royal Marines,〔 was part of a Marine patrol that came across an Afghan fighter in a field wounded by Apache Helicopter gunfire.〔〔〔 Blackman ordered the Afghan to be moved out of sight of the British Persistent Ground Surveillance System,〔 a camera on a balloon above British Forward Operating Base Shazad, Helmand, covering the area Blackman's patrol had been sent to.〔 Video evidence played at the Marines' subsequent trial shows them dragging the man across the field and then kicking him.〔 Blackman ordered other servicemen to stop administering first aid to the insurgent〔 and eventually shot the man in the chest with a 9 mm pistol,〔〔 saying: "Shuffle off this mortal coil, you cunt. It's nothing you wouldn't do to us."〔〔〔〔 He then added: "I just broke the Geneva Convention."〔〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「2011 Helmand Province incident」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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