Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

Iraqi Court Sentences Briton To Life In Jail

February 28, 2011

An Iraqi court has convicted a British security guard and sentenced him to life imprisonment for killing a British and an Australian security contractors.

Danny Fitzsimons was said to be the first Westerner to be convicted in an Iraqi court since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Fitzsimons, 30, could have faced the death penalty.

His Iraqi lawyer, Tariq Harb, said that under Iraqi law life in prison was equivalent to 20 years.

Fitzsimons, a former British soldier, had insisted that he had acted in self-defense during an alcohol-fueled brawl in Baghdad's Green Zone in August 2009.

Foreign security contractors had not been subject to Iraqi law until the beginning of 2009, when a security agreement between the United States and Iraq lifted their immunity.

compiled from agency reports

Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/iraq_court_briton_life_in_jail/2323027.html

Copyright (c) 2011. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.