A Briton was sentenced in Iraq 15 years in prison for smuggling antiques and a German was acquitted

A Baghdad court on Monday sentenced a British man convicted of attempting to smuggle antiques from Iraq to 15 years in prison, while Germany acquitted that he was on trial in the same case.

While reading the verdict, the judge stressed that the penalty under the Antiquities and Heritage Act for the crime for which James Fitton, 66, was convicted is “death by hanging”, but has decided to reduce it to ” 15 years’ imprisonment because of the accused’s age. Fayton’s lawyer, Thaer Masoud, told AFP: “We will appeal the sentence within two days and the Court of Cassation can decide to overturn it, reduce it or keep it”, considering it “very severe”.

On the other hand, the judiciary has decided to “cancel the accusation” against the German Volkar Weldmann “for lack of prove enough “to convict him, and as a result the court ordered his” immediate release. “The two men appeared before the Karkh courthouse in Baghdad wearing yellow prisoners’ uniforms in Iraq, according to an AFP reporter present at the session.

Fitton and Waldman were arrested at Baghdad International Airport on March 20. Fitton carried ten antiques in his purse, most of them pottery and pottery breakers, while Waldman had two pieces that he believed his flight mate had given him. They have arrivedin Iraq with an organized tourist trip and they didn’t know each other before.

In the first court session, the two men pleaded not guilty. “There was no indication that these were antiques and that they shouldn’t be taken,” said Waldmann, a Berlin-based psychiatrist. “I didn’t realize it was against the law to take these pieces,” said Fitton, a geologist in retirement living in Malaysia. However, the judge found in his ruling that Fitton was “aware and aware that the site is archaeological” when he collected the pieces, considering that the defense’s argument that there was no “criminal intent” in the extraction process. pieces “do not deny the proof” in possession by the judiciary of the existence of a crime punishable by law. He believed that Fuitton’s knowledge that the site was archaeological meant “the availability of criminal intent”. The trial of the two men took place in compliance with article 41 of the Iraqi Heritage and Antiquities Act, which provides up to the death penalty for “anyone who has deliberately removed antiquities from Iraq or attempted to remove it”.

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