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Lawyers' panel indicts Bush, Blair

Julian Ryall

Tokyo, Monday 07 March 2005 - US President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair deserve life sentences, with the possibility of parole after 25 years, for the war crimes and genocide in Iraq, according to a lawyers' panel.

Speaking on Monday at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, Kohki Abe, a professor of law at Kanagawa University, said they should face the "maximum penalty available". That would not include the death penalty, however, as the members of the tribunal opposed capital punishment, he added.

Abe is the chief justice of a four-person panel of the International Criminal Tribunal for Iraq (ICTI) that has judged the two leaders guilty of a series of charges.

The tribunal has headquarters in Istanbul, Turkey, and a final meeting of regional panels is scheduled for June.

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