Hang-fear Danny in appeal to PM

A former soldier facing a possible death sentence in Iraq has appealed to the Prime Minister to help him.

Danny Fitzsimons, from Middleton, made the direct plea to David Cameron from his jail cell in Baghdad where he has been held for a year awaiting trial for a double murder.

Mr Fitzsimons, 30, could be hanged if an Iraqi court convicts him of murdering former Royal Marine Paul McGuigan, 37, from Peebles in Scotland, and former Royal Australian Air Force serviceman Darren Hoare, 37, a father–of–three, from Queensland.

His murder trial was scheduled to begin at Baghdad’s Central Criminal Court yesterday (Thursday 5 August 2010 but was adjourned again while psychiatric tests are carried out on the defendant. A new trial date is expected in mid–September.

All three men were working for private security firm ArmorGroup when Mr Fitzsimons, a former paratrooper, allegedly shot them both dead in Baghdad’s high–security Green Zone on August 9 last year.

“I’m making a direct plea to Mr Cameron asking him, telling him, that’s it’s a disgrace that I’m here,” Mr Fitzsimons said, speaking by telephone to ITV’s Granada Reports.

“I served nine years for Queen and Country and I served another five years serving big British business in Iraq, you know.

“So, in a way that’s five years serving the country as well.” Mr Fitzsimons, who describes conditions in the jail where he shares a cell with 17 other inmates as “hideous”, added: “I should be in hospital in Britain, in a mental hospital getting the treatment that I need.

“You know, I shouldn’t be in a dungeon in Baghdad.

“Worst case scenario is guilty and death by hanging. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to end it here.”

Mr Fitzsimons’s family say he has suffered from alcoholism and depression and is a “damaged individual diagnosed with post–traumatic stress disorder”.

Mr Fitzsimons claims the double–killing was sparked by a drunken fight with the victims. He added: “Nothing I can say or do can change anything and I don’t expect any sympathy or positivity from Darren or Paul’s families.

“But all I can say is that, you know, for the babies, for the wives, for the mothers and the girlfriends, I’m sorry for your loss.”