High Court Consider Prosecuting Tony Blair Over Illegal Iraq War

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High Court to consider prosecuting Tony Blair over illegal Iraq war

The British High Court is seriously considering prosecuting former Prime Minister Tony Blair over the illegal war in Iraq.

The Iraq war was unnecessary and went against United Nations law, Michael Manfield QC told the high court in an opening statement on Wednesday.

Mansfield represents former Iraqi general Abdulwaheed al-Rabbat, who wishes to seek justice for the millions of Iraqi citizens needlessly killed since the war began in 2003.

The Guardian reports: Rabbat, said Mansfield, was motivated by last year’s publication of the report of the Chilcot inquiry into the 2003 Iraq war.

Mansfield summarised the report’s findings as: “Saddam Hussein did not pose an urgent threat to the UK, intelligence reporting about [Iraqi] weapons of mass destruction was presented with unwarranted certainty, that the war was unnecessary and that the UK undermined the authority of the UN security council.”

“Nothing could be more emphatic than these findings,” he said. “It was an unlawful war.”

Mansfield argued that when the British prosecutor, Sir Hartley Shawcross, opened the cases against Nazi leaders at the Nuremburg war crimes trials at the end of the second world war, he acted as though the crime of aggression had already been assimilated into English law.

An initial application to launch the prosecution was dismissed at Westminster magistrates court on the grounds that Blair enjoys immunity and that the crime of aggression does not exist in English law.

The court was told that attempts to persuade the international criminal court to prosecute to the former Labour prime minister for invading Iraq have made no significant progress.

The crime of aggression was finally defined in 2010 by the ICC, the high court heard, but it has not yet been ratified by a sufficient number of states.

The high court appeal is being heard by the lord chief justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, and Mr Justice Ouseley.

The current attorney general, Jeremy Wright QC, has intervened in the case to argue that the crime does not exist in the statute book. “The crime of aggression is not known to English law,” James Eadie QC, for the attorney general, told the court.

He also relied on a 2006 House of Lords ruling, R v Jones, which unanimously found that the international law crime of aggression is not an offence under domestic legislation in the UK.

A number of Iraqi supporters of Rabbat sat at the back of the court. Speaking before the hearing started, Sabah al-Mukhtar, of the Arab Lawyers Network, said: “This is just looking at whether the first court was right in refusing to entertain the case.

“The magistrates court dismissed it on the grounds that Tony Blair had immunity and that the crime of aggression was not part of English law. Many think they were not correct on that.”

Rabbat, a former chief of staff of the Iraqi army, was not in court. He currently lives in the Omani capital, Muscat; he is said not even to own a passport.

His lawyers said he has been able to bring the case in British courts because the UK previously occupied Iraq. Under the European Convention on Human Rights he is therefore deemed to have been within the jurisdiction at a relevant time.

The high court reserved its decision and allowed a further week for Rabbat’s lawyers to make additional specified submissions. If the judges do not dismiss the appeal, the issue of whether the crime of aggression exists in English law will be sent up to the supreme court to decide.

6 Comments

  1. BS. One sees stories of some government is going after some war criminal former head of state, don’t happen., won’t happen, until the people control their own destinies.

  2. I want to see this murderous cunt in chains, abusing his power and ignoring the will of millions of british subjects to push the globalist agenda…. he didnt care about no fucker except licking the arse of the elites…. fkn twat!

  3. ” Western Justice: It’s OK to kill a million people as long as you are sorry. Tony Blair apologized for the mistakes made by the U.S. and it’s allies in Iraq, apologized and everything would be alright, if not for the fact that any mistakes of the Anglo-Saxons are always paid with other people’s blood! “

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