Bath woman tells of stress as father faces death penalty in Iraq
A petition calling on the government to help has been signed well over 100,000 times
A woman from Bath, who's dad is facing the death penalty in Iraq, has told us the British government must do more to help him.
Jim Fitton was arrested at Baghdad Airport back in March on suspicion of trying to smuggle historical artefacts out of the country, after travelling to Iraq on a geology and archaeology tour.
His family say he had collected shards of broken pottery from a site in the desert and had specifically checked they were worthless and could be taken, but was still detained when trying to fly home.
The 66-year-old retired geologist has been in a holding cell at the airport ever since while he awaits trial and if he is found guilty, the punishment under Iraqi law is execution.
We have spoken to his daughter Leila and her husband Sam.
"We are all very, very much distressed," Leila said.
"I'm anxious all the time, so nervous.
"Last week I was just so upset and sad and crying all the time.
"I think now I'm just angry."
"We're just waiting for more bad news all the time aren't we," Sam added.
"Every time we pick up the phone there seems to be more bad news."
Sam told us Jim had picked up the pottery from an "unguarded, unsignposted site" in the middle of the desert.
We are told he was accompanied by an experienced tour guide, an official from Iraq's Ministry of Tourism and someone from Iraqi police and none of them said taking fragments of pottery would be an issue, but he was later arrested trying to check in at the airport.
A German man and the tour guide were also arrested and the tour guide, another British citizen, has since died from a suspected stroke while being treated in a Baghdad hospital.
"We get about five or 10 minutes a day to chat to Jim," Sam said.
"We haven't spoken to him verbally since before he was arrested. We get maybe five, 10 minutes a day where he gets to go online on his phone and WhatsApp message us."
Jim was originally arrested on March 20 but his plight has only now become public as, we're told, the government here initially told his family to keep quiet in case they upset the Iraqi's.
However, having not received the help they hoped for, they have now started publicising Jim's story in an attempt to pressure the government into doing more.
Sam says the Foreign Office have been "completely absent," on the case.
Wera (Hobhouse) our MP raised a point of order in the House (of Commons) a week or so ago effectively admonishing the Foreign Office for their complete lack of response to her, and they've been equally unresponsive to us," he said.
"We've never spoken to anybody in the British government who has any capacity to actually do anything to help us."
This comes despite a petition Leila and Sam set up a week ago calling for the government to do more, having been signed well over 100,000 times.
"We've still had no contact from anybody in the Foreign Office," Sam said.
"It's absolutely farcical."
Politically motivated?
Leila and Sam tell us they fear Jim is being treated so severely because of political pressure on the Iraqi authorities from Iranian backed militias.
"Our understanding is that the case has been seized upon by what have been described to us by experts locally as Iranian backed and Iranian funded militia groups within Iraq, who are seizing on the case as an example of Iraqi government leniency on western travellers and, in their perception, criminals," Sam said.
"That is obviously massively concerning for us because then we start to worry about, well, is he going to get a fair trial in that case?
"If the case is politically charged in that way then do they attempt to make an example of Jim for something incredibly trivial, where previously they have shown more leniency?"
Speaking to us earlier this week Sam and Leila's local MP Wera Hobhouse expressed a similar view.
"We have only just seen Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe being freed (from Iran) after many years of being held and while that is wonderful that she's home and we celebrated that as a success at last, who knows whether there were actually lots of blunders where the Foreign Office could have played it differently," she said.
"It seems that currently and we are very worried, that he might not get the fair trial that we, as a western democracy would expect a citizen to get in our country, and therefore that is where I think the Foreign Office does have to interfere, to make sure that he gets a fair trial and a fair hearing."
A wedding party ruined?
Leila and Sam live together in Bath, but Jim and much of Leila's family live in Malaysia and so they have not seen each other for two years because of coronavirus.
During the pandemic Leila and Sam got married in a small ceremony in Bath without her family present, so for months they have been planning a proper celebration in Malaysia with all of Leila's family including Jim.
It is due to go ahead this Sunday (May 8).
"It's almost become an afterthought hasn't it," Sam said.
"The whole thing was supposed to be a big sort of, return to Malaysia and a meet and greet between my family and Leila's family; we met a few years ago, got married in Bath in a Covid wedding in August last year and had been planning for two years to do a big thing with Leila's family in Malaysia."
"This was our chance for both our families to be together," Leila said.
"There is no good time for something like this to happen but it really could not be any worse for us," Sam said.
A Foreign Office spokesperson also told us in a statement: “We are providing consular support to a British national in Iraq and are in contact with the local authorities.
“The British Government’s policy on the death penalty is clear: We oppose it in all circumstances, as a matter of principle.”
If you want, you can see Leila and Sam's petition here.