(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - The court martial, at Portsmouth naval base, heard that on 20 September 2010, British Royal Navy medic Michael Lyons, 25, refused pre-deployment assault rifle training, repeatedly requesting to be assigned to a non-combat role. Michael Lyons also raised moral objections to the war in Afghanistan.
Lyons had served since 2005 as a medical assistant submariner, thus was dismissed and demoted from the navy afterwards. His case had been the first heard since 1996 by the Advisory Committee on Conscientious Objectors, which considers appeals from serving forces personnel to resign or retire on moral grounds, his case was one of only 37 cases considered by the committee in its 41-year life.
The committee rejected Lyons's appeal for conscientious objector status in December, leading to the hearing.
Mr Lyons confirmed he had no physical or mental impairment preventing him following orders, but had chosen to disobey orders based on his personal convictions, when speaking in court.
A depleted Lyons said: "My initial objections started with Afghanistan and I wanted to investigate the reasons why we were at war. At the time WikiLeaks came along and mentioned Iraq and Afghanistan. The reports said there had been some civilian casualties that nobody knew about and they were being covered up. After a lot of deliberation I decided I was a conscientious objector."
Lyons claimed he was told he would be barred from treating Afghan civilians, and this formed part of his objection.
"We were put into scenarios and in one of these a family had been walking for two days to our base. The child had a birth defect that was causing it pain and the instructor asked us whether they would get treatment. I said we would offer them whatever we could, but I was shouted down by an officer who said it was a waste of resources", he said.
Also at the court Warrant Officer Robert Bainbridge, who issued the training order, told the court he discussed Lyons's objections for hours said: "We spent six hours in my office talking about the issue. I told him that as a medic he is in a combative and non-combative role and had an inherent right to self-defence. He briefed me that he felt that the war in Afghanistan was unjust, but I told him I was not sending him to war, I was training him how to use a rifle.”
On behalf of Lillian Lyons after the trial Emma Sangster, co-ordinator of pressure group Forces Watch, said: "This seems a deliberately harsh sentence, which serves not only to punish Michael but to dissuade others from following his actions.
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