Putting British soldiers on trial. The Week's letter of the week.

Consider the treatment of these three servicemen.

Sgt Alexander Blackman, Royal Marines, spent 1,277 days behind bars for shooting a mortally wounded Taliban fighter in Afghanistan.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5426377/Freed-Royal-Marine-Alexander-Blackman-gets-new-job.html

Major Robert Campbell, Royal Engineers, faced eight investigations into the death of an Iraqi 15 years ago.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-5424699/British-major-face-eighth-inquiry-Iraqi-teen-s-death.html

75 year old former Guardsman Dennis Hutchings faces court over a death in Northern Ireland 44 years ago.

https://www.forces.net/news/tri-service/retired-british-soldier-face-trial-over-deadly-1974-shooting

Little wonder that Johnny Mercer MP, a former captain in the Royal Artillery, commenting on the British Government’s approach to such matters said: “The current system is perhaps the worst betrayal of servicemen by the political leadership of any country anywhere on earth, and it is happening in Britain today.”

https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/worst-betrayal-of-soldiers-in-world-1-8542459

Now reflect on this letter in The Week(June 30), which first appeared in The Daily Telegraph, and decide if the three pillars of the British Political Establishment; the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats are guilty of “double standards” and “betrayal”. 

Putting soldiers on trial.

To The Daily Telegraph

Another soldier is to be prosecuted for events that took place in Northern Ireland decades ago. 

I served in Northern Ireland during the 1970s and 1980s, and recently added my name to a petition addressed to the Government entitled “British soldiers who served in Northern Ireland must have immunity from prosecution”.  The Government’s written response stated that prosecutions were a matter for the police and the prosecuting authorities, who acted independently of the Government.  The paragraph ended: “We do not support amnesties or immunity from prosecution.”

This sentence encapsulates the double standards that exist in dealing with immunity: the government of the day acted contrary to the present policy when it made a political decision to allow an amnesty and immunity for hundreds of convicted felons under the Good Friday Agreement.

This is what people in the military find impossible to swallow.  How could any British government do a deal to draw a line under the conflict without ensuring that their own servants, who had given them enough breathing space to achieve a political peace, were treated in the same way as the criminal protagonists?

It’s time for this Government to put the matter right once and for all.

Col Anthony Snook (retd), Petworth, West Sussex