It is hard lines on Mr. Bellenger that the first
question of any importance he has had to handle as Secretary of State should be the sentences on the paratroopers at Kluang. His first statement, before the report on the legal aspects of the trial, was clear, firm and impres- sive, and his action in quashing the convictions when the Judge- Advocate-General's ruling on the irregularities at the trial had been received was taken with laudable promptitude. But no one can think the present situation anything but profoundly unsatisfactory. The men have not been found not guilty. Some, if not all, of them were unquestionably guilty of a grave military offence, but no one knows which, or how many ; and all, however guilty, are to go unpunished. The reasons for that—the irregularities disclosed in the court-martial proceedings—are disturbing in the extreme. Evidence was taken from spokesmen of groups, instead of from individuals ; the Judge Advocate at the trial misdirected the court in law as to the bearing of the evidence on individual cases and he failed to deal with the case of each accused individually on the basis of the facts of that particular case. Incidentally there was only one defending officer for all the 243 men. The Judge Advocate at the trial has yet to be heard in his own defence. Meanwhile the one good feature of the whole affair is the Secretary of State's decision to appoint a strong committee to go into the whole question of court-martial procedure, which clearly needs a wholesale overhaul.
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