Briton sentenced to 20 years in Iraqi prison for killing two contractors

AN Iraqi court convicted a British man and sentenced him to 20 years in prison over the shooting dead of two contractors, making him the first Westerner convicted in an Iraqi court since the 2003 US invasion.

Danny Fitzsimons, 30, was found guilty of the 2009 fatal shootings of a British and Australian contractor who worked with him, and with attempting to kill an Iraqi guard.

Fitzsimons, who had been facing the death penalty, said as he was being led from the courtroom by Iraqi guards that he was happy with the sentence. But when asked whether he thought the trial was fair, he said: “No.”

His stepmother said she was worried he would take his life if transferred to a prison outside the protected Green Zone in the centre of Baghdad where he is currently being held.

“We really are concerned that wherever he does end up he is safe,” Liz Fitzsimons told a London press conference.

Referring to the prison in eastern Baghdad where Fitzsimons would likely be transferred, she said her stepson was worried that he would be targeted by al-Qaida-linked prisoners because of his military background. “He said ‘I will be a dead man if they put me in there’,” she said.

The former security contractor from Rochdale, England, admitted to shooting the men but claimed it was self-defence.

During earlier testimony, Fitzsimons said that he and co-workers Paul McGuigan and Darren Hoare had been drinking whiskey when a fight broke out. In the quarrel, he said the two other men pulled guns on him and he had no choice but to shoot them with his pistol.

Covered with blood, Fitzsimons fled the scene and was running toward the British Embassy when an Iraqi guard pointed his Kalashinkov rifle at him and asked him to stop. Fitzsimons shot the guard in his left thigh. All three foreigners and the Iraqi guard worked for a British security firm, ArmorGroup.

Fitzsimons also claimed to be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after serving with the British military in Kosovo and as a security contractor in Iraq in an earlier tour. His stepmother said he should have never been sent to Iraq because of his mental health issues. The family did not know he went to Baghdad.