Court-martial of Breaker Morant

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The 1902 court-martial of Breaker Morant was a war crimes prosecution that brought to trial six officers – Lieutenants Harry "Breaker" Morant, Peter Handcock, George Witton, Henry Picton, Captain Alfred Taylor and Major Robert Lenehan – of the Bushveldt Carbineers (BVC), an irregular regiment of mounted rifles during the Second Boer War. The trial opened in Pietersburg during January 1902. The charges, which were in part prompted by a "letter of complaint" which was written by BVC Trooper Robert Mitchell Cochrane and signed by James Christie and 14 other members of the BVC, were that Lieutenant Morant had incited the co-accused to murder some 20 people, including the wounded prisoner of war (POW) Floris Visser, a group of four Boer prisoners of war (POWs) and four Dutch schoolteachers, Boer civilian adults and children, and a Lutheran missionary named Rev. Daniel Heese. Morant and Handcock were acquitted of killing Heese, but were sentenced to death on the other two charges and executed...

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