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Pardons for Morant, Handcock and Witton, three Australian soldiers, were sought from their court-martial convictions for the murder of Boer prisoners-of-war and local civilians during the Second Boer War.
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Following four courts martial in early 1902, Lieutenants Peter Joseph Handcock and Harry "Breaker" Morant, of the Bushveldt Carbineers (BVC) of the British Army, were executed by a firing squad of Cameron Highlanders, in Pretoria, South Africa, on 27 February 1902, 18 hours after they had been sentenced. Lord Kitchener signed their death warrants.
Following the court recommending mercy in his case, the sentence of a third officer, Lieutenant George Ramsdale Witton, was commuted to life imprisonment by Lord Kitchener. Following public pressure, Witton was released on 11 August 1904, but never pardoned.
In 2009, an Australian military lawyer, Commander James William Unkles of the Royal Australian Naval Reserve, sent petitions for pardons for all three men to both Queen Elizabeth II and to the Petitions Committee of the Australian House of Representatives, but both governments declined them.
South Africans have often opposed pardons for Morant, Handcock and Witton. In a 2012 book published in South Africa, Charles Leach summed up the arguments against pardons, citing as precedents cases including: the 1474 trial of Peter von Hagenbach; the 1813 prosecution of Ensign Hugh Maxwell for murdering French POW Charles Cottier at Glencorse Barracks, Scotland during the Napoleonic Wars, and; the US Army court martial of Lieutenant William Calley and other soldiers responsible for the My Lai Massacre, during the Vietnam War. In addition, the "superior orders" defense argument, used by Major J. F. Thomas at the trial of Morant, Handcock and Witton, later gained notoriety. because many of those prosecuted for Nazi war crimes at the Nuremberg Trials attempted to use it; so many, in fact, that it became known as the "Nuremberg Defense".[1]
In 1904, a printed petition to King Edward VII was circulated in Australia, for signature by interested parties, requesting clemency in the form of (a) a pardon for George Witton, and (b) the immediate release of Witton from his incarceration. At least one copy of the petition, signed by thirty-seven individuals from the town of Colebrook, Tasmania, is extant.[citation needed]
In 1907, the publication in Australia of Witton's book Scapegoats of the Empire revived debate about the convictions.[citation needed]
In October 2009, the Australian military lawyer, Commander James William Unkles, of the Royal Australian Naval Reserve, sent petitions for pardons for Morant, Handcock, and Witton to both Queen Elizabeth II and to the Petitions Committee of the Australian House of Representatives.
The first petition was considered by the British Government, on behalf of the Queen—"The petition argued that the convictions were unsafe and that their trial was unfair because the men were denied the right to communicate with the Australian government, refused an opportunity to prepare their cases and blocked from lodging an appeal."[2]—and, in November 2010, the UK Ministry of Defence issued a statement that the appeal had been rejected:
"After detailed historical and legal consideration, the Secretary of State has concluded that no new primary evidence has come to light which supports the petition to overturn the original courts-martial verdicts and sentences".[2]
The second petition was considered by the House of Representatives' Petitions Committee at a public hearing on Monday, 15 March 2010. Unkles appeared before the committee, along with others, including the historian Craig Wilcox. On Monday, 27 February 2012, in a speech delivered to the House of Representatives on the 110-year anniversary of the sentencing of the three men, Alex Hawke, M.P. described the case for the pardons as "strong and compelling".[3]
In May 2012, Attorney General Nicola Roxon informed Unkles that the Australian Government would not approach the British Government to seek a pardon for Morant because he, Handcock and Witton did, in fact, kill unarmed Boer prisoners and others.[4] Roxon's letter to Unkles stated that in Australia "a pardon for a Commonwealth offence would generally only be granted where the offender is both morally and technically innocent of the offence".[5] Moreover, her letter stated that "Despite the time that has passed ... I consider seeking a pardon ... could be rightly perceived as glossing over very grave criminal acts".[6]
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