JUDGES LEAD HANDCUFFED TONY BLAIR THROUGH CENTRAL LONDON ON IRAQ WAR ANNIVERSARY War Crimes Prosecutions Demanded for Blair and Brown |
10.30am, 20 March 2008, Royal Courts of Justice, The Strand: To mark the 5th anniversary of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, ten 'Judges for Justice' will frog-march a handcuffed Tony Blair through central London this Thursday, demanding war crimes prosecutions for the former PM and his successor. The procession – which will start at 10.30am outside the High Court – will pass through some of the busiest areas of central London before terminating at Tony Blair's office in Grosvenor Square [1]. The judges – dressed in their wigs and robes – will also be displaying a 'Justice for Iraq' banner, picturing Blair and Brown behind bars, clutching blood-spattered bank-notes. Justice Gabriel Carlyle said, "Five years ago today, the US and Britain invaded Iraq, in an illegal [2] war of aggression, based on lies [3]. Since then over a million Iraqis have been killed, and a further 3 million forced to flee their homes [4]. "In 1946 the Nuremberg Tribunal set up to try Nazi war criminals, concluded that '[T]o initiate a war of aggression . . . is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole' [5]. "Yet today, the Iraq war's primary British architects – Tony Blair and Gordon Brown – remain at large. Indeed, Brown – who financed the war – has become Prime Minister, and Blair 'is well on course to becoming the richest former prime minister in [British] history' [6]. "Today, as we mark the 5th anniversary of the Iraq invasion, justice demands accountability – and prosecutions - for the 'supreme crime'." NOTES [2] 'Iraq War Was Illegal, Says Annan', BBC, 24/09/04, http://tinyurl.com/4ndcw [3] 'New analysis 'confirms' 1 million+ Iraq casualties', ORB Survey, 28/01/08, http://tinyurl.com/yozd8j. 'Statistics on displaced Iraqis around the world', UNHCR, 09/07, http://tinyurl.com/24g3ny. [4] 'The Trial of German Major War Criminals Sitting at Nuremberg, Germany', The Judgement, p.13, HMSO 1946, http://tinyurl.com/2b65ov [5] 'Tony Blair to earn £2mn as J.P Morgan adviser', Telegraph, 11/01/08, http://tinyurl.com/3742gf. However, according to a 'source close to the couple', Cherie Blair – a QC with the human rights lawyers Matrix Churchill – 'has private fears that her husband could face a war crimes trial over the invasion of Iraq.' "[S]he still thinks it is a real possibility," a friend explained ('Blairs at a loss as sun sets on their decade', Sunday Telegraph, 10/07/07, http://tinyurl.com/36op9c).
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March 22, 2008
ACTIVISM: London on Iraq War Anniversary
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