Sir Roger Casement, arrested for treason after a trip to enemy Germany during World War One in which he had tried to garner support for an Irish rebellion against Britain, was "exposed" as a homosexual during his trial on the basis of diary entries he claimed he had never written.
The Black Diaries - faked evidence or fact?
In 2002 graphologists verified the diaries as “very likely to be genuine” but many, especially in Ireland, still stubbornly maintain that they were forgeries cooked up by the British authorities. This contention is based not only on suspicion of British ‘dirty tricks’ (a similar tactic had been employed against Charles Stuart Parnell) but in the diaries’ lurid and graphic content, so at odds with all else the man wrote. Moreover, if genuine, they reveal a promiscuousness that is surpassed in its unlikelihood only by the alleged opportunities Casement had to indulge it.
But why would the crown go to such extraordinary lengths to defame the man when they already had such a seemingly watertight case against him for treason? Casement’s trip to Germany was an open secret, the exercise reported by the Germans publicly and riddled in any case with British spies. Casement himself had been arrested within hours of being put ashore from a German U-boat off Kerry, and throughout his interrogation and trial he had made no attempt to hide what he had been up to. To Sir Roger, Irish freedom from British rule was simply another human rights issue, and his efforts needed no apology, even if they were judged treasonable.
Casement as Consul
One answer lies in Casement’s career. Before his recruitment into the Irish Volunteers, a revolutionary nationalist outfit, Casement had – incredibly - been an eminent British Consul in Africa and South America, and indeed his work had earned him his knighthood. His main achievement, the exposure of brutal atrocities in the Congo and Putuyama, had had far-reaching international repercussions, and his subsequent writings on human rights had won him a significant following, especially in the USA. Part of the answer to why Britain needed to so disgrace their prisoner rested with this fact – they did not want to execute a ‘hero’ in the eyes of too many neutrals.
The fatal punctuation
But there was another reason why it was vital that his reputation be destroyed and it lay in the law under which Casement was being tried. Despite the strength of their case the prosecutors knew that there was a very real chance that the charge of treason might not succeed,. Should Casement escape prosecution therefore it would help enormously that his reputation be destroyed.
And what was that reason? Well, it all hinged on a comma!
The anciently worded law stated treason to be if … “... a man do levy war against our Lord the King in his realm, or be adherent to the King's enemies in his realm, giving to them aid and comfort in the realm, or elsewhere ...”
The problem was the “or elsewhere”. Hitherto it had always been assumed that treason could only be committed within the realm, the “elsewhere” applying only to the “comforting” of the King’s foes. Casement had not ‘levied war within the realm’, the key element of the definition. In fact he had been arrested while trying to stop the planned Easter Rising, having been convinced in Germany of its folly.
The court ruling however was that the presence of the comma meant everything. Its role, the judges claimed with scant regard for grammatical syntax, was to associate the “or elsewhere” with everything previous in the sentence. Casement, by being “elsewhere” when he fraternized with the “enemy” could therefore be legally prosecuted for treason.
Casement was hanged on August 16th, 1916, an innocent victim of a perverse British application of the law in the eyes of many. English grammar, some say, was another!
Sources:
"Roger Casement: The Black Diaries" Author: Jeffrey Dudgeon Publisher: Belfast Press 2002 ISBN: 0953928721
"Roger Casement in Death: Or Haunting the Free State "Author: WJ McCormack Publisher: UCD Press 2002 ISBN: 1900621770
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