Family of man facing death penalty in Iraq says government refusing to meet them
We've been speaking to the son-in-law of Jim Fitton, who's accused of trying to smuggle historical artefacts out of the country
Last updated 13th May 2022
The family of a British man, who is facing the death penalty in Iraq, says the UK government is refusing to meet with them.
Jim Fitton, a retired geologist, was arrested in Baghdad eight weeks ago accused of trying to smuggle historical artefacts out of the country, but he says he was told the broken pottery he found in the desert was worthless.
His family say he had collected shards of broken pottery from a site in the desert and had specifically checked they were not valuable and could be taken, but was still detained when trying to fly home.
The 66-year-old 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 caught up with his son-in-law Sam Tasker, who says the government is not doing enough to help.
"The government are very keen to demonstrate to everybody that they are providing what they call consular support and I think it's worth calling out the distinction there and actually saying what that is," he said.
"So consular support is providing the family with the contact numbers of a number of English speaking lawyers in that county.
"It is going to visit the prisoner once a week, once every two weeks, to check on their wellbeing, to make sure they're being fed and watered, and as we've recently found out it doesn't even extend to providing a translator for court, which a lot of other countries do do as part of their consular support."
Instead, Sam and the rest of Jim's family need to choose and pay a translator themselves, otherwise Jim won't understand the court proceedings.
His first court appearance is scheduled for Sunday (May 15).
Earlier this week, on Wednesday (May 11), Bath MP Wera Hobhouse raised the issue as an urgent question in the House of Commons, saying she is "deeply concerned" by the Foreign Office's lack of action, adding the government has given the impression they are not worried about the case.
In response, Foreign Office minister James Cleverly said the government "will of course" continue to raise the case with Iraqi officials and liaise with Jim's family, but did not say if he, or anyone else from the government, will meet with them.
"We have now all but given up on securing any ministerial support from the Foreign Office," Sam said.
"We've still never spoken to any minister, no matter how junior, about this case."
That comes despite a petition calling for more help for Jim, having been signed more than a quarter of a million times.
"Given that the petition's got 260,000 odd signatures now and the amount of support from people all over the world has been unbelievable, you really would expect us to have had at least a 15 minute chat with somebody with decision making capability in the Foreign Office and we just haven't had that.
"We've asked repeatedly, Wera (Hobhouse) has asked repeatedly.
"They won't meet with our MP and they won't meet with us."
The petition calling for more help can be found here.