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Pardon for Morant, Handcock and Witton

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Pardon for Morant, Handcock and Witton refers to various attempts to secure a pardon for three Australian soldiers convicted of war crimes by the British military during the Second Boer War. Following four separate courts martial in early 1902, during the Second Boer War, Lieutenants Peter Joseph Handcock (1868-1902) and Harry Harbord Morant (1864-1902), also known as "Breaker" Morant, of the Bushveldt Carbineers, were executed by a firing squad of Cameron Highlanders, in Pretoria, South Africa, on 27 February 1902, 18 hours after they had been sentenced. Despite the court recommending mercy in both cases, Lord Kitchener confirmed their death sentences. Kitchener personally signed their death warrants.

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Pardon for Morant, Handcock and Witton refers to various attempts to secure a pardon for three Australian soldiers convicted of war crimes by the British military during the Second Boer War. Following four separate courts martial in early 1902, during the Second Boer War, Lieutenants Peter Joseph Handcock (1868-1902) and Harry Harbord Morant (1864-1902), also known as "Breaker" Morant, of the Bushveldt Carbineers, were executed by a firing squad of Cameron Highlanders, in Pretoria, South Africa, on 27 February 1902, 18 hours after they had been sentenced. Despite the court recommending mercy in both cases, Lord Kitchener confirmed their death sentences. Kitchener personally signed their death warrants. Following the court also recommending mercy in his case, the sentence of a third brother officer, Lieutenant George Ramsdale Witton (1874-1942), was commuted to life imprisonment by Lord Kitchener. Following public pressure, Witton was released, but never pardoned, on 11 August 1904. As part of an extended historical process (dating from the time of the original courts martial in 1902), and seeking to redress alleged injustices towards all three men, and to gain formal recognition that the verdicts convicting the three for murder, were, in each case, "unsafe verdicts", an 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 in October 2009. The British Government chose to not issue a pardon in November 2010 as there was no historical evidence to justify overturning the court martial decision. The Australian Government announced in May 2012 that it would not seek a pardon for Morant from the British Government as he and the other two men were guilty of killing the prisoners.