AUS Asks UK to Reconsider "Breaker Morant" Cases

[The Bread Guy]

This from Agence France-Presse:

Australia has sent Britain a petition calling for posthumous pardons for two soldiers court-martialled and executed more than 100 years ago in South Africa, a government spokesman said Wednesday.

The petition asks Britain to review the trials of lieutenants Harry 'Breaker' Morant and Peter Handcock who were found guilty of the murder of 12 prisoners of war in the dying days of the Boer war.

Attorney-General Robert McClelland sent the petition, from military lawyer Commander James Unkles, to Secretary of State for Defence last week.

"We don't express a view either way on it," McClelland's spokesman said.

"We sent it because we don't have any jurisdiction to issue a pardon or review a case that was made by a foreign government in a foreign country."

Unkles said there were strong grounds for overturning the 1902 verdict against Morant, Handcock and their co-accused George Witton, who had his death sentence commuted, because it contained serious errors.

"The passing of time and the fact that Morant, Handcock and Witton are deceased does not diminish the errors and these injustices must be addressed," Unkles said in a statement.

"The issue is not whether Morant and Handcock shot Boer prisoners, which they admitted to, but whether they were properly represented and Military Law properly and evenly applied."

The petition argues the accused were denied the right to communicate with the Australian government or relatives after their arrest and during their trials and were refused an opportunity to prepare their cases.

"During the trial they were denied an opportunity to have their defence of obedience to superior orders tested in court as Lord Kitchener, the British military Commander-in-Chief -- who allegedly issued orders to the accused to shoot Boer prisoners -- declined to appear despite being called," Unkles said.

Morant, who volunteered to fight with the British in South Africa, was born in England but became well known in Australia as a poet and a horsebreaker.

Scottish-born writer Nick Bleszynski, who researched the case for his book 'Shoot Straight, You Bastards!' and helped write the petition, said a pardon for Morant was overdue ....

More here from the Sydney Morning Herald.

 

[Old Sweat]

Very interesting. In the early nineties I read a modern reprint of Witton's book Scapegoats of the Empire. This edition included a commentary including some information that had come to light since the original was published. Among the gems was a statement attributed to Morant's lawyer that the night before his execution, Morant had confessed to murdering a missionary who had witnessed the execution of the Boers. Ironically he had been acquitted on this charge. The theory was postulated that the Brits knew he had beat the rap so to speak, and made sure he and his co-defendants were convicted of the shooting of the prisoners. I cannot recall if this was based on a deathbed statement by his lawyer or a letter to be read after his death.

There is a Canadian sidebar to this. Morant tried to use the supposed drumhead execution of Boer prisoners by the Strarhconas in his defence and Witton included a poem that had appeared in The Navy Illustrated lauding the "incident" in the book. While it was supposed to have happened on 15 August 1900 near Twyfelaar in the eastern Transvaal, and rumours of it quickly spread through the army, no one ever came forward to state that they witnessed the deed or saw the corpses or their graves. My subsequent correspondence with the South African Military History Society determined that no one in that country had ever heard of it and the Boer casualty records showed that there were no casualties in that area on that date. Moreover, the Boers had no records of anything of the sort happening. If they had any firm data, you can be sure it would have been exploited for all it was worth at the time, and afterwards.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Reviving necrothread with the latest:

.... (Australian) Attorney-General Robert McClelland, after meeting a representative of Morant's descendants and advocate Jim Unkles, a former military lawyer, has agreed to review the facts of the court martial to see if a case for pardons can be made to Britain.

British authorities have previously rejected petitions to reopen the case.

"The case involves complex questions of law and historical evidence about events that took place over a century ago," McClelland said.

"The competing assertions still evoke considerable emotion even to this day."

McClelland said Australia had no jurisdiction to review the legality of decisions made by British courts martial, but a key issue remained the claims that Morant and Handcock were denied procedural fairness in the process leading up to and during the court martial.

"This is of particular interest to me because fair and proper process is at the heart of our justice system," he said. "I will consider the material provided to me during today's discussion and assess the merit of another possible representation to the UK Government." ....

New Zealand Herald, 2 Sept 11

 

[mike63]

Funny that you should bring this up.  I just finished watching that movie a couple of days ago.  Excellent movie by the way!

 

[The Bread Guy]

Reviving necro-thread with the latest (research inspired by my latest viewing of the film  ;D)....
From 2012 ....

A plea to have Boer War soldier Harry "Breaker" Morant posthumously pardoned has been rejected by Australia's Attorney General, Nicola Roxon, who has refused to take his case to the British government .... "It would not be appropriate for the Australian government to advocate for a pardon when there is no dispute that Mssrs Morant, Handcock and Witton actually committed the killings of unarmed Boer prisoners and others," Ms Roxon wrote in a letter to Commander Unkles ....

Telegraph, 10 May 2012

.... and from this summer:

.... more than a century on, campaigners are to launch a legal bid at the High Court in London to force the Government to open an inquiry into the case with a view to securing a posthumous pardon for Morant, as well as fellow soldiers, Peter Handcock, shot for the same offence, and George Witton, who was jailed for life.

The supporters believe the men were simply following British army orders when they executed their prisoners and that they were used as scapegoats by embarrassed senior officers, including Lord Kitchener, and to accelerate peace talks with the Boers.

Jim Unkles, a military lawyer who has taken the case on, said: “I am applying to the High Court for a review of the British government decision not to help an independent inquiry. I am filing papers next month. The appeal will be on the basis that there were major errors at the court martial, that it was an abuse of protest and that these men were denied their rights. Kitchener conspired to get them executed.”

Mr Unkles argues the men received inadequate legal representation and were denied access to certain evidence. He is representing around 25 relatives of the men, some in Australia and some in Britain, but said that the case was “not about financial compensation”. He has been negotiating with a firm of British solicitors to act as his representatives in London for the case ....

Telegraph, 25 Jul 13