BAGHDAD: An Iraqi court has overturned the conviction and 15-year sentence handed to a British pensioner last month for antiquities smuggling, the retiree’s lawyer said Tuesday.
The conviction of James Fitton has been “overturned today by the Court of Cassation and my client will soon be free,” lawyer Thaer Saoud told AFP.
“We are very pleased by the decision, but we are still waiting for his release,” his son-in-law, Sam Tasker, told AFP in a phone call.
Fitton had been charged under a 2002 law against “intentionally taking or trying to take out of Iraq an antiquity.”
He stood trial alongside German national Volker Waldmann, who was acquitted. Both men had pleaded not guilty.
According to statements from customs officers and witnesses, Fitton’s baggage contained about a dozen stone fragments, pieces of pottery or ceramics.
When the judge in the original trial asked Fitton why he tried to take the artefacts out of Iraq, the retired geologist cited his “hobby” and said he did not mean to do anything illegal. But the judge concluded there was criminal intent.
The maximum penalty for the offense is death by hanging, but Fitton was sentenced to 15 years because of his “advanced age,” the judge in the original trial said.
Fitton’s lawyer launched the appeal just over a month ago.
The case comes at a time when the war-ravaged country, whose tourism infrastructure is almost non-existent, is tentatively opening to visitors.
Iraq to free Briton jailed in antiquities case: lawyer
https://arab.news/9cann
Iraq to free Briton jailed in antiquities case: lawyer
- "We are very pleased by the decision, but we are still waiting for his release," his son-in-law told AFP
- Fitton had been charged under a 2002 law against "intentionally taking or trying to take out of Iraq an antiquity"
UN rights chief Shocked by ‘unbearable’ Darfur atrocities
- Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur
PORT SUDAN: Nearly three years of war have put the Sudanese people through “hell,” the UN’s rights chief said on Sunday, blasting the vast sums spent on advanced weaponry at the expense of humanitarian aid and the recruitment of child soldiers.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been gripped by a conflict between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that has left tens of thousands of people dead and around 11 million displaced.
Speaking in Port Sudan during his first wartime visit, UN Human Rights commissioner Volker Turk said the population had endured “horror and hell,” calling it “despicable” that funds that “should be used to alleviate the suffering of the population” are instead spent on advanced weapons, particularly drones.
More than 21 million people are facing acute food insecurity, and two-thirds of Sudan’s population is in urgent need of humanitarian aid, according to the UN.
In addition to the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis, Sudan is also facing “the increasing militarization of society by all parties to the conflict, including through the arming of civilians and recruitment and use of children,” Turk added.
He said he had heard testimony of “unbearable” atrocities from survivors of attacks in Darfur, and warned of similar crimes unfolding in the Kordofan region — the current epicenter of the fighting.
Testimony of these atrocities must be heard by “the commanders of this conflict and those who are arming, funding and profiting from this war,” he said.
Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur.
“We must ensure that the perpetrators of these horrific violations face justice regardless of the affiliation,” Turk said on Sunday, adding that repeated attacks on civilian infrastructure could constitute “war crimes.”
He called on both sides to “cease intolerable attacks against civilian objects that are indispensable to the civilian population, including markets, health facilities, schools and shelters.”
Turk again warned on Sunday that crimes similar to those seen in El-Fasher could recur in volatile Kordofan, where the RSF has advanced, besieging and attacking several key cities.
Hundreds of thousands face starvation across the region, where more than 65,000 people have been displaced since October, according to the latest UN figures.
