On October 23, 1911 PD Honor Stephanie Harrington, then serving as a Commodore in the Royal Manticoran Navy, was captured by the armed forces of the People's Republic. Harrington had already been tried and convicted prior to the present war for the murder of the crew of the Republic of Haven Merchant Ship Sirius in the Basilisk system.
The fact that Harrington was serving as an officer of the armed forces at the time of her capture caused some concern in judicial circles. Harrington claimed that her commission in the Manticoran armed forces protected her, under the Deneb Accords, from the consequences of her earlier crime. The People's government has scrupulously observed the Accords and therefore asked the Supreme Tribunal of the People's Justice to rule on the case.
As Harrington's conviction was delivered by a civilian court some years prior to the commencement of hostilities, the Supreme Trubunal ruled that the protections of Article 41 of the Accords did not apply, and and she was accordingly remanded into the custody of the Office of State Security as a civilian prisoner.
The Supreme Tribunal did recommend that consideration be given to the exercise of the executive's power of clemency in this case. This was not because the Tribunal felt that the prisoner deserved it ("she manifestly does not" wrote People's Justice Theresa Mahoney in her Judgement) but out of fear for the safety of PRH prisoners of war in Manticoran Alliance hands. However, the Committee for Public Safety held that the crimes were so heinous that they could not interfere in the execution of justice in this case, and declined to exercise its prerogative of mercy. Harrington was accordingly hung at Camp Charon in the Cerberus system. Confirmation that the sentence had been carried out was received in Nouveau Paris on January 24, 1912 PD.
The People's Republic reminds its enemies that this was a single exceptional case. Any mistreatment of PRH personnel in retaliation will have the most serious consequences for those responsible when peace is restored. It could, in addition, only serve to worsen the conditions of prisoners of war on both sides.
The information above is provided by the Office of Public Information at the direction of Citizen Committeewoman Cordelia Ransome, Committee for Public Safety
Written by Kevin Logan, based on the information set out in "Echoes of Honor" by David M Weber, Baen Books, New York, ISBN 0-671-57833-2
Author's note: I would dearly have liked to just have posted Leonard Boardman's address to the press conference here in its entirety, but in my view the quotation would be too long (in both absolute terms and relative to the length of this page of the site) to be justifiable under the "fair use" provisions of British copyright law. I'm afraid you'll just have to buy the book! However, the good thing about that is that David will continue to earn enough from writing professionally to feed his family, so he might carry on doing it and giving us more stories! KJL.