Who Is Jim Fitton? British Geologist Jailed In Iraq After Taking Artefacts
On March 20, Jim Fitton was arrested after airport security discovered the items in his luggage at the Baghdad airport.
Recently, a British citizen, Jim Fitton, was sentenced by an Irani Court to 15 years in prison on charges of smuggling artifacts out of the country.
Jim Fitton and Volker Waldmann, a German national, were arrested at Baghdad airport on March 20 after airport security discovered artifacts in their luggage as they had been part of a tourism expedition across the country’s ancient sites.
Volker’s defense team has said that he was carrying the pieces of Jim, and he did not pick them from the site, which made him innocent, and he was released.
Who Is Jim Fitton? British Geologist Jailed in Iraq
Jim Fitton is a 66-year-old retired British geologist, and he is originally from Bath.
Jim is very interested in artifacts as a geologist, so he went on a geology and archaeology tour in Eridu, southeast Iraq, a beautiful archeological site.
The geologist collected 12 stones and shards of broken pottery from there, which were discovered at the airport, and brought him to be jailed for 15 years for attempting to remove artifacts from Iraq.
This case has attracted international attention where a British citizen was sentenced to 15 years in prison by an Irani court on charges of smuggling artifacts out of the country.
An Iraqi court has sentenced Jim Fitton, a retired British geologist to 15 years in prison on charges of smuggling artefacts out of the country https://t.co/hxPuuKscHe pic.twitter.com/XfSlj1RWs0
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) June 6, 2022
On March 20, Jim’s family started to get worried as he did not return on a scheduled flight back to Kuala Lumpur, where he lives with his wife.
After which, they learned Jim had been taken to an airport holding cell. Then at the airport holding cell, in his luggage total of 12 fragments of pottery and other shards were found by the authorities, which were collected as souvenirs.
Jim’s lawyer, Thair Sound said, “I thought the worst-case scenario would be one year, with suspension.”
Though the judge did not consider Soud’s argument.
According to a technical government investigation, Judge Jabir Abd Jabir found that the artifact that Jim had taken were older than 200 years.
Both Jim and Volker were charged with smuggling based on the country’s antiquities laws, which the death penalty could have punished. The sound said he intends to appeal to Fitton’s sentence immediately.
The family of Jim was shattered and heartbroken by the outcome and described the ruling by an Iraqi court as a death sentence because of his age.
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The verdict shocked those in court, including his defense attorney, Sound, who expected one year as a worst-case scenario.
