Until yesterday, the British soldier convicted of murdering a Taliban insurgent in Afghanistan in 2011 was known only as Marine A.
Today, for the first time, he will appear in court under his own name - Sergeant Alexander Blackman - to be sentenced for his crime.
The naming of the soldier, following a ruling by the High Court in London, came after weeks of arguments about whether it was right to maintain his anonymity. The 39-year-old was convicted of a terrible crime - shooting a wounded Afghan insurgent - and anyone who has seen the footage of the event, captured on a camera worn by one of his colleagues, will know of the brutal nature of what happened. Certainly, Blackman himself knew what he was doing. "I've just broken the Geneva Convention," he said.
In any other circumstances, the identity of a man caught on camera killing another man in this way would be public knowledge, and rightly so in a justice system that operates openly and publicly in almost every case.
However, from the beginning of Blackman's case, the court ruled he should not be named because of the risk of him being targeted by terrorists. Blackman's lawyer argued there was a long-standing threat to military personnel from terrorists and the risk would be increased by naming him. In recent days, the trial of the men accused of murdered soldier Lee Rigby has surely added to the power of this argument.
However, in considering the argument, the balance the High Court had to strike was the risk to Blackman and his family - and every effort will have to be made to protect them - with the fact those who commit murder must accept the consequences of the crime and one of those consequences is being named in open court.
As was pointed out in Blackman's defence, he was, until the incident in 2011, a soldier with an excellent record. He was seen as a safe pair of hands; he was respected by comrades and had shown valour in Northern Ireland and Iraq. Not only that, he had been credited with building good relations with local people in Afghanistan.
There can also be no doubt about the kind of pressures and stress he and other soldiers were under. Like many other soldiers there, Blackman had seen friends killed and had had very little rest when he came face to face with the insurgent in 2011.
Some have argued these factors should mean leniency for Blackman but General Sir Nick Houghton, the head of the Armed Forces, is closer to the truth when he says leniency would erode the moral ascendancy which British forces must seek. As Sir Nick has said, murder is murder and any citizen found guilty of it - whether a soldier or a civilian - must be punished, and be seen to be punished, for the crime.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article