The case of Sergeant Blackman returns to the news

BBC reports a Campaign launched to review life sentence of Sergeant Alexander Blackman.

Sergeant Alexander Blackman shot dead the injured captive in Helmand Province in Afghanistan in September 2011.

Blackman, of Taunton, Somerset, was convicted of murder at a court martial in 2013, but his 10-year minimum term was reduced to eight years on appeal.  The Daily Mail claims crucial evidence was deliberately withheld from the original court martial.  

The DM says that [n]ow a painstaking Mail investigation can reveal:

Evidence that might have resulted in a lesser charge of manslaughter was ‘deliberately withheld’;

A high-flying colonel who was blocked from telling the truth to the court martial called it ‘a failure of moral courage by the chain of command’;

The colonel was so disgusted that he resigned his commission;

Court martial panel members sent a message to Blackman – who is eligible for parole after eight years – apologising for the length of his sentence.

The Mail has seen confidential papers claiming the panel members who decided Blackman’s fate were deliberately kept in the dark and were therefore ‘blind to facts’ that would help him.