Well well you lot!

[one eyed jack]

Lets see what you make of this then.



What say you ladies and gentlemen of the jury?

[max_tranmere]

In 'the new, democratic, fair, reasonable Iraq' how can there be such a thing as the death penalty? I would ask Messrs Bush and Blair 'didnt loads of British soldiers and American soldiers die in order to make the country more civilised'? Or was it all largely for nothing? Messrs Bush and Blair, if you can find a minute in your heavy schedules of earning as many millions as you can from the contacts you made whilst in office, could you answer that question?

[Jonone]

Anyone who smuggles drugs should be summarily shot. Ditto those two girls who tried to pull the insurance scam in Brazil, but this guy's okay. He's an ex-soldier for one thing and our boys are doing a heroic job. Normally i'd take a very dim view of people using dubious medical conditions or psychological states to account for some heinous act, but in the case of post traumatic stress disorders resulting from battle i've got a blind spot so he's okay on this score too.

Looks like a possible miscarriage of justice to me. There doesn't seem anything 'weird' about him .. like I say he seems a decent bloke.

[planeterotica]

Jonone wrote:

> Looks like a possible miscarriage of justice to me. There
> doesn't seem anything 'weird' about him .. like I say he seems
> a decent bloke.

planeterotica wrote:

Apart from the fact that he killed two people.

[Bob Singleton]

Unlike the ill-informed barrack room lawyers who normally post in these forums, I don't know enough about the case (on either side of the argument) to offer an opinion.

Mind you, I see ignorance hasn't detered the likes of Max Tranmere... it doesn't normally stop him!

[one eyed jack]

Ok Jonone , so what about the lives of the two people he killed then. Throughout your post you seemed to avoid any mention of the fact he has killed not one ..but two people.

So you think his sentence should be commuted to life imprisonment then?

From your post I was wondering if you felt it was ok to let him off altogether.

I understand the post traumatic stresss disorder thing but then is this man ok to go back into society where he can easily kill again?

This is a sign that he could get all Michael Ryan on us. Remember him who shot up Hungerford inthe early 90's before turning a gun on himself to avoid capture. Different set of circumstances of course.

Because hes an ex soldier lets not forget as a person, a regular human being he could still be an ass hole too.

The fact he was a soldier probably made it easier for him to kill those guys. Who is to say post traumatic stress disorder had anyhting to do with it?

He might have killed them because he was an out and out nutter.

[one eyed jack]

Max I'm convinced you bend everything to suit your own beleifs.

Iraq is not Britain and how they choose to govern their people is a matter for that country.

I beleive certain states inthe US carry the death penalty but I hardly hear anyone criticising them for being "uncivilised"

[David Johnson]

Hi
Before sentencing I think there should be a full, psychiatric assessment. I felt the same about the British guy executed in China for drug smuggling. The Chinese refused.

The main purpose of that assessment should be to assess the impact of any mental illness e.g. post-traumatic stress on the crime committed.
If there is deemed to be mental illness causing this then he needs imprisonment with medical treatment to help sort the problem. Possibly with some agreement that he serves his sentence in the UK.

If it is deemed that there is no mental illness, then he should be subject to the same laws of the land as any other murderer.

Whether any of the above happens in Iraq is a different matter, but that's what I think should happen.

D

[jimslip]

This will "cheer" you up and maybe help you understand the real reason why 100's of our soldiers and tens of thousands of civilians have died in Iraq:



As the old folk like to say, "It's an ill wind.............."

[Bob Singleton]

jimslip wrote:

> This will "cheer" you up and maybe help you understand the real
> reason why 100's of our soldiers and tens of thousands of
> civilians have died in Iraq:
>
>
>
> As the old folk like to say, "It's an ill wind.............."
>


Interestingly the Daily Mail have been deathly silent about all the money Margaret Thatcher (her late husband and her brain-dead son!!!) and Major made out of being Prime Minister!!!