2011 Helmand Province incident

Not to be confused with 2007 Helmand Province incident.

Map of Afghanistan with Helmand highlighted.

The 2011 Helmand Province incident was the execution, 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. Later, on 5 December, Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas and two other judges sitting at the High Court in London 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.

The event

The incident took place during Operation Herrick 14, part of the British effort in the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021). On a patrol in Helmand Province, Blackman and two other Marines came across an Afghan fighter in a field wounded by Apache helicopter gunfire. Video evidence played at the Marines' subsequent trial shows them dragging the man across the field and then kicking him. Marine A eventually shoots the man in the chest with a 9 mm pistol, saying: "Shuffle off this mortal coil, you cunt." He then adds: "I just broke the Geneva Convention."

Trial and sentencing

The Law Courts building, housing the High Court.

After the 15 September incident, Blackman continued with his tour of duty, leaving Helmand Province in late October 2011. Arrests were not made until October 2012, when Royal Military Police arrested Marines A, B and C on suspicion of murdering an unnamed Afghan insurgent after British civilian police discovered suspicious video footage on a serviceman's laptop. Two other service personnel, Marines D and E, also being investigated, had charges against them dropped in February 2013. Marines A, B and C first appeared in court in August 2013, where they entered a not-guilty plea. The military trial of Marines A, B and C, protected from view in court behind a screen because of an anonymity order, lasted two weeks. Their court-martial board was seven strong, something usually only done for the more serious cases.

The verdict (8 November 2013) and sentence (6 December 2013) were both delivered at the Military Court Centre in Bulford, Wiltshire. The judge advocate (the civilian judge heading up the panel at a court-martial) was Judge Advocate General Jeff Blackett. The verdict carried with it a mandatory life sentence, so it was only in the judge advocate's and court-martial board's power to decide on the minimum sentence once the board had found Blackman guilty.

It had also been Jeff Blackett who had ordered the original anonymity order for the Marine defendants; the order was lifted for Blackman (hitherto Marine A) on 5 December 2013 by the High Court. The most senior figure involved in that verdict was Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas. The same ruling had it that Marines B and C remain anonymous pending a judicial review. The question of the continuing anonymity of Marines D and E will be addressed at another hearing.

Jeff Blackett also restricted public access to the evidence used at the trial, releasing on 8 November stills, audio clips and transcripts from the serviceman's video that was played to the court-martial board, but ruling that the full video itself not be released, since doing so "would increase the threat of harm to British service personnel."