better known as Marine A – will be released from jail tonight or early tomorrow, it was revealed today.
Sgt Blackman will finally leave Erlestoke jail in Wiltshire and finally be reunited with his wife Claire, who has led his campaign for justice wince he was jailed in 2013.
But the military police plan to take him away hidden in a car to stop the press capturing the moment he walks free, it has been claimed.
Author Frederick Forsyth, who helped lead his campaign for freedom, admitted his secret release was like something from one of his spy novels.
He told the Guardian: ‘The establishment wants to spirit him out in the middle of the night to a secret location. If I wrote this in a book people would say that’s just not the way things are done in Britain. But it is these days.’
The former marine has offered his ‘profound and heartfelt’ thanks to Daily Mail readers for their support.
The Royal Marine declared himself stunned and overwhelmed with gratitude to those who had campaigned for justice after military top brass left him to rot in prison.
Judges slashed his sentence for killing a Taliban fighter and as the momentous decision was announced, Sergeant Blackman’s wife Claire shed tears of joy.
Inside and outside court Royal Marines cheered and punched the air last month.
Claire Blackman (centre), wife of jailed former British soldier Alexander Blackman, Marine A, reacts outside the The Royal Courts of Justice in London on March 28, 2017, after learning the result of her husband’s reduced sentence
It sealed a stunning victory for the campaign for justice for Sgt Blackman – called Marine A during his military trial – who was jailed for life in 2013 for killing the insurgent in Afghanistan in 2011.
Daily Mail readers raised £810,000 to fund a fresh appeal that led to Sgt Blackman’s conviction being reduced from murder to manslaughter on the basis of diminished responsibility.
Five Appeal Court judges led by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas, accepted he had been suffering from combat stress. They cut his sentence to seven years, of which he will serve half.
As he has already served almost three and a half years and is to be released in the early hours of Friday morning.
Sgt Blackman will be a free man TONIGHT: Marine A will finally be released in the early hours of Friday
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