The 1902 court-martial of Breaker Morant was a war crimes prosecution that brought to trial six officersLieutenants Harry "Breaker" Morant, Peter Handcock, George Witton, Henry Picton, Captain Alfred Taylor and Major Robert Lenehanof the Bushveldt Carbineers (BVC), an irregular regiment of mounted rifles during the Second Boer War. The charges, which were in part prompted by a "letter of complaint" which was written by BVC Trooper Robert Mitchell Cochrane and signed by James Christie and 14 other members of the BVC, were that Lieutenant Morant had incited the co-accused to murder some 20 people, including the wounded prisoner of war (POW) Floris Visser, a group of four Boer prisoners of war (POWs) and four Dutch schoolteachers, Boer civilian adults and children, and a Lutheran missionary named Rev. Daniel Heese. Morant and Handcock were acquitted of killing Heese, but were sentenced to death on the other two charges and executed within 18 hours of sentencing. Their death warrants were personally signed by Lord Kitchener. It was not until 1907 that news of the trial and executions were made public in Australia when Witton published Scapegoats of the Empire. The Australian government subsequently ensured that none of its troops would be tried by the British military during World War I. Floris Visser ambush, capture and death Floris J. Visser (c.1881 - 11 August 1901) was an Afrikaner and member of the Letaba Commando, which fought for the Republic of Transvaal during the Second Anglo-Boer War. Visser's summary execution while a wounded prisoner of war was one of the alleged war crimes that were prosecuted in the Court martial of Breaker Morant. At the time of his death, Visser was about twenty years of age. Capture On the night of 6 August 1901 Floris Visser was wounded in his ankle during an ambush of his Boer Commando by a patrol of the Bushveldt Carbineers, an irregular unit of the British Army, led by Captain Percy Frederick Hunt. The ambush took place at the Viljoen homestead in Duivelskloof. During the same attack, the Commando lost Field cornet Barend Viljoen, his brother J.J. Viljoen, and F.J. Schell. The Bushveldt Carbineers lost Captain Hunt and Sergeant Frank Eland. After the ambush, the remnant of the Letaba Commando was pursued by a BVC patrol led by Lieut. Harry Morant, who was outraged by the death of his friend Captain Hunt. Although Morant had only arrived from Fort