New Zealand Politics for Wales - Kiwi judge calls Blair a War Criminal

New Zealand Supreme Court judge has launched a blistering attack on outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair, effectively calling him a war criminal for his role in the Iraq conflict.

Justice Ted Thomas, who retired last year but still presides over ongoing cases, told the Sunday Star-Times yesterday that Blair "deceived Cabinet, parliament and the British people" over the war. And in a hard-hitting essay published in British journal The Spokesman this month, Thomas writes: "As extreme as it sounds, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that, should he be prosecuted at a time when the plea of sovereign immunity is not available, Mr Blair would be found guilty of a war crime." Thomas said Blair would be guilty of the customary international law crime of aggression as the war was launched without legal basis. "A regime change is not the basis for conducting an invasion of another sovereign state." He said Blair misrepresented - and must have known he was misrepresenting - his attorney-general's advice on the legality of the war. The essay has drawn conflicting opinion from across the political spectrum.

......... But Thomas's savage essay accuses Blair of treating the foreign affairs portfolio as his "personal fiefdom". Blair, says Thomas, became "almost like a parrot" to the neo-conservatism of US president George W Bush's administration during his tenure. He says the war is "also an indictment on the political system" which failed to hold him to account over the manipulation of intelligence. The lack of political checks meant Blair "was not constrained from committing political, immoral and illegal misdemeanours". ...Thomas wrote Blair also showed "effective complicity" in the US practice of extraordinary rendition - in which prisoners are deported to countries where they can be tortured. The essay, written as a judicial investigation, said it was "incongruous" Blair had not resigned or been forced to resign over the war, which "was based on a delusion, and which has had such calamitous and humanly tragic consequences. In short, he has not been held accountable in parliament for the manipulation of the intelligence or the deception he practised in pursuit of the war". Sunday Star Times 13.5.07