‘I just want my dad home’ pleads daughter of British geologist jailed in Iraq

Dad-of-two Jim Fitton, 66, was sentenced to 15 years on Monday after being found guilty of smuggling so-called “ancient artefacts” out of the country by a Baghdad court in Iraq

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Children of British geologist jailed in Iraq beg for dad’s return

The family of a British geologist who has been jailed in Iraq are pleading for him to come home.

Dad-of-two Jim Fitton, 66, was sentenced to 15 years on Monday after being found guilty of smuggling so-called “ancient artefacts” out of the country by a Baghdad court in Iraq.

The retired geologist was in the Middle East on an archaeology tour when he was arrested alongside German national Volker Waldmann.

Both men were charged, but while Mr Fitton was hit with a 15-year term – which his distraught family say is “tantamount to a death sentence” – the German man was acquitted.

Mr Fitton’s daughter Leila and son-in-law Sam Tasker said he sounded “calm” and “didn’t show emotion” when he was sentenced.

Leila fought back tears as she told BBC Breakfast : “I just want my dad home. It’s so undeserving, he’s not a criminal.”

Sam added: “I don’t think it’s really sunk in for the rest of us, we have to keep fighting and so we’ve just suspended our emotional response for now as much as we can.”

Sam said they’ve been pleading with MPs to do something but it’s “fallen on deaf ears” as they are now trying to get the case publicised to spread awareness about their appeal.

He said: “We need the British government to throw their weight behind us.”

Yesterday, Wera Hobhouse MP for Bath – whose constituents are Jim’s daughter Leila and son-in-law Sam – told The Mirror the Foreign Office (FCDO) may have failed to secure a favourable outcome for the pensioner after falling “asleep at the wheel”.

“All we know from the family is that they’re going to appeal”, she explained.

“My impression is that the Foreign Office has done very little, was asleep at the wheel, I don’t know.”

Ms Hobhouse said she and Sam managed to secure urgent meetings with Amanda Milling, the Tory Minister of State for Asia and the Middle East, but that responses from her office were “very reluctant” and “draggy”.

“And the response, as always, is that we deal with these things, not in the chamber and not publicly but we do it behind closed doors.”

The Liberal Democrat MP claims they eventually had a “relatively good meeting” but “by that time about five or six weeks had passed and Jim was facing a second hearing”.

Ms Hobhouse claims Sam told her these so-called “artefacts” were very small and non-descript.

She said: “They’re tiny shards. And Sam showed us a whole hillside full of bits and pieces.

“And these are tiny things, little crumb type things. You can’t even put them together and make something else you know.

“Jim sort of collects them as a bit of a souvenir from where he’s been.

“They’re completely worthless, have no value, and that was the impression under which he put these in his luggage.”