Family fears son’s suicide in Iraq jail

Photo: PICTURE: PRESS ASSOCIATION

Fitzsimons is led away from an Iraqi court after escaping the death sentence

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Former paratrooper Danny Fitzsimons, who was jailed for 20 years in Iraq yesterday for killing two security guard colleagues, is threatening to take his own life, according to his family.

Liz Fitzsimons, his stepmother, said Danny is frightened of being sent to Baghdad’s Rusafa prison because he is a former British Army paratrooper.

But she said the family’s fight goes on to bring him back to serve his sentence in the UK.

Fitzsimons from Middleton admitted manslaughter with diminished responsibility but pleaded not guilty to murder after shooting his ArmorGroup colleagues Paul McGuigan and Darren Hoare, both aged 37, in August, 2009.

He claimed it was in self-defence, but judges yesterday found him guilty over the shootings, as well as with attempting to kill an Iraqi guard.

However, they said they had taken into consideration his mental condition when deciding on the sentence. Mrs Fitzsimons said she was “euphoric” that he had avoided the death penalty, but still had “massive concerns”.

She said: “Danny, for the last few weeks, has been constantly saying he cannot end up in Rusafa jail, which is the main jail out there.

“He said it’s full of al Qaida, Taliban, Mujahideen, all of these people.

“He said ‘I will be a target’ and he said ‘I just won’t last’.

“He said ‘I will be a dead man if they put me in there’.

“We really are concerned that wherever he does end up he is safe.

“He has also said that if they talk about putting him in Rusafa jail he will take his own life first.”

She added: “We’re so relieved that he’s not got the death sentence, we had been told to expect it.

“To get a life sentence rather than the death penalty is unheard of but I think its partly because we’ve fought so hard.” Mrs Fitzsimons said Danny should not have been allowed to go to Iraq because of his mental health, and that he had been discharged from the military after suffering from post–traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

She said they did not know that he had gone to Iraq to work for the private security firm.

She added: “I’m very concerned for his mental health, when Eric saw him last week his mood swings were changing from manic to morose to desperate.

A spokesman for legal charity Reprieve said there was still a chance Fitzsimons will face the death penalty, because both the prosecution and defence have 30 days to decide to launch an appeal against the sentence.

Mrs Fitzsimons said the family will be appealing to reduce his sentence and will continue the fight to bring him back to the UK to serve his prison sentence.