UK soldier found guilty of Afghan murder

A British soldier has been found guilty of murdering an injured Taliban fighter in Afghanistan by shooting him in the chest, a British court martial board has found.

The Royal Marine who may be facing life in prison as a result of Friday's decision told fellow soldiers to hush the incident up and acknowledged "I just broke the Geneva Convention'' as he carried out the act, prosecutors said.

The board ruled that the commando, who can only be identified as "Marine A", was guilty of killing the unnamed man in Helmand Province in September 2011.

Hi all,

This story is a follow on from a recent one which covered the murder of an Afghan insurgent, whereby the Military court had released the audio files of the above incident, and began to call into question the incident itself - www.abovetopsecret.com...

This story here though, is an update on that incident. The Military court had only convicted the marine who pulled the trigger, whereas his 'accomplices' were acquitted of other charges, namely that of "encouraging and assisting" in the killing.

Overall, i think the conviction is a just one. Yes, war is hell, but the individual in question had murdered the afghan man, thus breaking the Geneva Convention.

What say you, ATS?

www.aljazeera.com...

If the the audio recordings can be verified to be authentic; Then the individual in question simply set himself up to pay his own debt.

10 years in a Civvy Jail....not sure how i feel about this...He did Murder an Unarmed, Injured man though...It's just not Cricket old bean..


Rules is Rules i suppose..

www.presstv.ir... -gets-life-for-afghan-murder/

We are meant to be one of most technologically and socially evolved nations on the planet (not saying middle-easterns aren't socially evolved but that's how it's sold to us), what is murdering unarmed people in their won country going to achieve? Granted he was a fighter, but he was defeated. I think this was a big, necessary step, we can't have our boys and girls out there shooting unarmed men, raping women and generally, giving us an awful name. All acts like this do is create a better cause for the people shooting back at us. If we had gone over there and had a purely humanitarian goal in mind, where we helped the sick and injured and made sure the people there were safe, surely we would have their unyielding loyalty? Who doesn't praise their protectors? But the people out there see the Taliban as their protects, why? because of people like this marine. It needs to be cast out of our military and we need to carry ourselves with a little bit more civility, even in the chaos of war.

reply to post by daaskapital


Shame the UK soldier was convicted. It is war after all - not a bout of pushing and shoving.

But the world always tries to hold the Western forces up to some silly standard of morality and civility - given they're up against barbaric animals

And it's sad that we have to play by these ridiculous rules or engagement and "morality" when the enemy do not.

When we do, it changes nothing; the bad guys still terrorise, kill, bomb and destroy and when captured, get clothed, fed and eventually released.

The other way round, not even close.

To be honest, I have no issues with the act - i only wish the soldier had disabled his headcam. Had i been there, i would have had the lads turn it all off, then pop the terrorist.

Unbelievable they would convict him in my opinion. The injured Afghani man had just attacked their base.....I would have done the same. The guy deserved to die and was a soldier and knew he might die attacking. So because he was only injured in the first round of attack we have to keep him alive? For what? That is ridiculous. They should have chalked this one up to someone getting what they deserved.

Wussification of the world seems to apply here. Both sides knew what they were getting into.

reply to post by noonebutme


Well now your argument is going in circles, this afghani man deserved to die because he killed soldiers so we kill him? That makes us no less barbarians. If we want to argue barbarity then we should hold ourselves at a higher standard, process murderers with courts and law. If we say "Oh they are barbaric so we can do barbaric stuff to them" then were does it end? We all end up as barbaric murderers. Completely invalid argument bordering on racism, totally disagree with this.

At that time, in that place it was a meat grinder.
Sure. Rules were broken but in the context of the ops that were going down, I think the only sane judgement would have been to write this off to some form of ptsd.

Now it's endex for a life long marine and his family who bear the additional burden of being a target for any scabby taliban wannabe that read their name in a paper or heard it on the news.

That said, I can't get over the stupidity of keeping a recording.

noonebutme
reply to post by daaskapital

 

But the world always tries to hold the Western forces up to some silly standard of morality and civility - given they're up against barbaric animals

If you are doing the invading of a country in the name of peace I don't think blunders should be accepted.
Remember who invaded who.

reply to post by Vasa Croe


reply to post by noonebutme




In the UK we punnish war Criminals and with pirde.

Unlike the USA that lets monsters like William Calley walk free.

Taggart
If you are doing the invading of a country in the name of peace I don't think blunders should be accepted.
Remember who invaded who.

Can you invade a country in the name of peace? I don't want to go off topic here but that doesn't make sense either! I agree though, since that is the story of why we're over there that we get spoon fed, you would hope we would at least try and act that way.

Do not take me as someone who disrespects our armed forces, every nation and every peoples has their warriors and we should be grateful that they have taken a vow, to lay down their lives to protect us (not sure how they are protecting us in the middle east right now, they are only promoting extremism through oppression and creating a blow back effect endangering our homes, but again, this is off-topic). This does not mean that we should be BREAKING LAWS, he knew he broke part of the geneva convention, which was created to protect innocents and to stop soldiers from turning into blood-thirsty killers, this is important, these people represent us on an international scale, if you want soldiers who kill unarmed men to represent you, then go to north korea.

iRoyalty

Taggart
If you are doing the invading of a country in the name of peace I don't think blunders should be accepted.
Remember who invaded who.

Can you invade a country in the name of peace? I don't want to go off topic here but that doesn't make sense either! I agree though, since that is the story of why we're over there that we get spoon fed, you would hope we would at least try and act that way.

edit on 6-12-2013 by iRoyalty because: typo

I'm just talking about the official narrative, your question is an entirely different debate all together but I very much agree with you.

reply to post by Taggart


Yeah I know, I'm not trying to bite at my allies! I was just trying to expel the notion that we are there for peace, no one puts trillions of dollars worth of investment into promoting peace, if they did, we would have it.

Peace isn't profitable.

Double Tap!

War sucks, it can easily make good people do horrible things.

A LOT of soldiers there have gotten away with a lot more then that, i know that for a fact.

iRoyalty
Well now your argument is going in circles, this afghani man deserved to die because he killed soldiers so we kill him?

Correct

That makes us no less barbarians. If we want to argue barbarity then we should hold ourselves at a higher standard, process murderers with courts and law. If we say "Oh they are barbaric so we can do barbaric stuff to them" then were does it end?

I never said it doesn't. I was pointing out the ironic nature of taking a soldier to court for the execution of man who tried to kill the UK forces. I find it laughable.

We all end up as barbaric murderers. Completely invalid argument bordering on racism, totally disagree with this.

Racist? How did you get to that conclusion?

reply to post by crazyewok


Sure we do - I don't deny it.

But this solider isn't a war criminal. He executed a man who TRIED TO KILL HIM.

Why are you people trying to paint a moralistic picture around this? It's WAR. By its very nature it is immoral! It isn't fun. It isn't clean, it isn't nice. And it isn't FAIR. It's sanctioned killing.

WHy are you trying to pretend it isn't? Why, because we the UK or they the US are engaged means we bring a "higher standard" of ethical killing to the battlefield? Because we're "liberating" people means we should kill in a "nice and friendly and fair" way? Because it's a western country means it's somehow "Better" when it kills its enemies?

?!

Taggart
If you are doing the invading of a country in the name of peace I don't think blunders should be accepted.
Remember who invaded who.

"Invading" and "peace". Yeh. Those two words have wonderfully similar connotations.. :/

How can you "Invade" a country in the name of peace? By the very action it's an attack?

Hell, at least I don't sugar-coat the act of war under some cozy "let-me-feel-good-about-myself" blanket by pretending it's about peace.

At least I can accept the fact that it's, if anything, not about peace but about our (western) personal, political and fiscal interests.

Having said that, I'm 100% behind our armed forces and always will be. But at least I don't pretend this whole fiasco is "ok" in any sense of the word. What happens on the battlefield stays on the battlefield. It's not like he was taken to an army barracks and then tortured or brutalised. He wasn't forced into a camp and subsequently gassed. He wasn't eliminated because of his race or colour. He was killed because he was a soldier on a battlefield who MADE THE CHOICE to attack his opponent and failed and was caught and then killed.

reply to post by noonebutme


You're bordering racism because you're instantly assuming that because they're Afghani, that they're barbarians. How do you know this guy didn't fight with a bit of honour and honesty?

My point is, that if you're saying they are barbaric and deserve to die for doing stuff like killing unarmed men, then why do you condone it for our own troops? It's like you're saying it's not ok for them to do it, but it's ok for us to do it? How do you come to that conclusion? My only thought for you thinking this is because we're mostly white and they are brown? That is the only difference between us.

I would rather, they treated us like crap and we treated them with respect, then while the rest of the world looks on (including the Afghani people) they will not think we're ruthless invaders who have come to **** people up! Especially the Afghani people, why do you think there are no end to insurgents that are willing to do barbaric things to British troops? Because recruitment is at an all time high when the foreigners who are invading are killing unarmed people and bombing civilian structures.

I agree with you that war is ugly, there is nothing good about it and it will bring out the worst in people. That doesn't mean we should agree with it.

reply to post by daaskapital



It seems that when 'push comes to shove' we are little better than those whom we demonise.

And of course those soldiers that witnessed the act should have immediately taken their comrade prisoner.

Fat chance.

Our armed forces are unfortunately legitimate targets, we are after all the invaders.