§ Mr. Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton)(by private notice): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on what action Her Majesty's Government are taking following the sentences imposed on Mr. Farzad Bazoft and Mrs. Daphne Parish by a court in Iraq.
§ The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. William Waldegrave)The whole House will join me in expressing dismay and horror at the unjustified sentences that Mr. Bazoft and Mrs. Parish received from the Iraqi revolutionary court on Saturday. The sentences are out of all proportion to any offence that may have been committed. In particular, we deplore the death sentence passed on Mr. Bazoft.
Before the trial opened last Thursday, we had made more than 50 separate representations to the Iraqi authorities making clear our concern for the well-being of Mrs. Parish and Mr. Bazoft. Our major concern at that stage was to try to secure a fair trial for Mrs. Parish and Mr. Bazoft.
In addition to that constant pressure on the Iraqi authorities, the Prime Minister wrote to President Saddam Hussain on 21 February, before the trial took place, to express her concern about the two cases. President Saddam Hussain replied to the Prime Minister on 28 February assuring her that the trial would indeed be a fair one. From the account that we have received, it is clear that no evidence was presented that would justify such harsh and disproportionate sentences.
Our immediate aim is to save the life of Mr. Bazoft and to secure a review of the sentence imposed on Mrs. Parish. As soon as the outcome of the trial was known on Saturday, the Prime Minister wrote again to President Saddam Hussain asking for both sentences to be reduced on humanitarian grounds. At the same time, we summoned the Iraqi ambassador and made clear to him the Government's reaction.
We have asked our friends and allies in the middle east and elsewhere to approach the Iraqi Government and support our call for clemency. The European Community has already taken action. The Irish, French and Italian ambassadors in Baghdad, on behalf of the Twelve, delivered a message to the Iraqi authorities urging them to reconsider the sentences.
In all this, we should not forget the plight of Mr. Ian Richter, another British prisoner serving an unjustifiably harsh sentence in a Baghdad prison.
Iraq has shown herself recently to be concerned about what she would call the misrepresentation of her policies abroad. She can be in no doubt about the damage that would be done to her standing in the world, let alone to her relations with the United Kingdom, if these unacceptable sentences were to be confirmed.
§ Mr. KaufmanIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Government will have the full support of Her Majesty's Opposition in taking action to secure the release of Mr. Bazoft and Mrs. Parish? Is he further aware that we regard the sentences as unacceptable, having been imposed following a secret trial and a staged confession?
We welcome the action so far taken by the Government and by the European Community, and we welcome also 22 the support of King Hussein of Jordan. We urge the Government to ask our European Community partners, individually as well as collectively, to make representations to the Iraqi Government. The French Government in particular should have a special status with Baghdad, following the help that it gave to Iraq in the Gulf war.
I note the right hon. Gentleman's comments about contact with middle eastern countries. Have the Government been in touch with the League of Arab States, for it would be very valuable if they would intercede—in particular, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, in view of their particularly close relationship with Iraq.
Will the right hon. Gentleman make clear to the Iraqi Government that, even though we have had serious misgivings about basic aspects of Iraqi policy, Members on both sides of the House have been active in seeking to improve the United Kingdom's relationship with Iraq and would wish that improvement to continue? Will he make it equally clear that, if Mr. Bazoft were to be executed, that would inevitably have the most damaging impact on our bilateral relations, both diplomatically and in trade terms, and, in particular, in terms of financial credit? How many British business men, for example, would be ready to visit a country where they might be arrested on trumped-up spying charges and face the death penalty?
In this case there are serious implications for journalistic freedom and serious implications for human rights. In whatever further approaches the British Government make to the Iraqi Government on behalf of Mr. Bazoft and Mrs. Parish, will they make it clear that they speak on behalf of a completely united House of Commons?
§ Mr. WaldegraveI greatly appreciate the tone in which the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) has spoken. On occasions like this, the unity of the House is important, and in that regard I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues.
We have made a number of contacts in the middle east, both with multilateral organisations and with individual countries. I shall follow up one or two of the further suggestions that the right hon. Gentleman has just made. He is right to emphasise that Iraq ought to consider the utterly inevitable response, not only in the United Kingdom but elsewhere, if it should persist in these sentences. Even if the Government or the Opposition or individual politicians wanted to suppress the reaction in the United Kingdom, it would be beyond their capacity to do so. The right hon. Gentleman is right to emphasise that. Of course, we do not wish in any way to disguise our own horror.
As I said on Saturday, as events unfold we shall rule out nothing. We shall look at all the possibilities, but we hope that at this late hour the President of Iraq will respond to the appeal, not only of the Government but of the right hon. Gentleman, to look to the future of his country in relation to the rest of the world community. We hope that he will respond to the appeals for clemency.
§ Mr. Ian Gow (Eastbourne)Was any representative of our embassy in Baghdad present at the trial? Has my right hon. Friend received a transcript of the proceedings? Does he have any evidence that this trial could be described as having been in any way a fair one?
§ Mr. WaldegraveOur consul-general was present at the trial. We have not received a transcript, but we have 23 received his account. I would draw a distinction between a revolutionary court in Baghdad and the normal courts of Iraq, the latter of which follow procedures that would be relatively familiar to this House. A revolutionary court proceeds in a much more secretive way, and there is no formal appeal against its decisions. That is why we had to appeal to the President for clemency. In the terms of any proceedings that this House would recognise as a trial, we should not be happy to describe the proceedings of the revolutionary court as constituting a fair trial.
§ Sir Russell Johnston (Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber)I wonder whether, by any chance, the Minister heard a programme on the radio last night in which the press counsellor at the Iraqi embassy, whose name I do not remember, was interviewed. He said that he hoped that relations between Iraq and the United Kingdom would not be affected adversely "by this small matter". I thought that those words were quite chilling and indicated clearly that the gentleman concerned did not understand press freedom or human rights.
I welcome what the Minister has said, and I support what has been said by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman). Has any direct request been made to the Iraqi Government that the two persons concerned be repatriated to this country directly?
§ Mr. WaldegraveOur first suggestion, all those weeks ago, was that repatriation would be by far the best and simplest way of dealing with the matter. Unfortunately, there was no response to that suggestion. I share the hon. Member's anxiety that people should talk about human rights in the terms used by the press counsellor whom he quoted. We must get it across to Iraq that, to this House, these are not small matters but major matters. We understand that Iraq has been through a terrible war and that there is still no formal peace. We understand the tensions and the pressures that exist in that country. None the less, Iraq must understand that we attach immense value to human rights and to the protection of our citizens and those travelling in our name.
§ Mr. Jeremy Hanley (Richmond and Barnes)I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his statement. He has the full support of all right hon. and hon. Members on the Government side—indeed, I am pleased to see, in the House as a whole. I am grateful also that he included in his reply a reference to my constituent Mr. Ian Richter, who has served nearly four years' imprisonment in Baghdad for a crime that most of us feel was completely trumped up—something more to do with internal Iraqi politics than with justice. Will my right hon. Friend reconsider how we might react to Iraq if things should go sadly wrong in this case, particularly as, only recently, we have increased credit to Iraq? Perhaps now is the time to start getting tough. In the meantime, my right hon. Friend's diplomatic pressure is extremely welcome.
§ Mr. WaldegraveI deliberately referred in my answer to the case of Mr. Ian Richter, which my hon. Friend has assiduously pursued on a constituency basis, and I pay tribute to him for that. All the remaining Iraqi co-defendants in Mr. Richter's trial have been released. We have long sought his release. We add our plea for him to our pleas for the others. My hon. Friend referred to one 24 relationship between Britain and Iraq. As I have said, we shall consider all the connections between our two countries as events unfold.
§ Mr. Andrew Faulds (Warley, East)Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that those of us who have long been friends of the Arab world find the conduct of a court such as this and sentences such as these very disturbing and that we would all urge the President of Iraq, who has powers of clemency in such matters, to use those powers?
§ Mr. WaldegraveI very much value the hon. Gentleman's intervention. People like him who know the Arab world well and who can by no stretch of the imagination be decribed as Zionist plotters may carry some weight in this matter, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making his point. An Iraqi information Minister said today that the pressure that was brought to bear by the international community in this case represented some form of intervention in Iraq's internal affairs. That is not so. We understand that it is perfectly in order for petitions for clemency to go to the President after a decision by the revolutionary court. That is what, I hope, the House joins us in pressing for.
§ Mr. Matthew Carrington (Fulham)Does my right hon. Friend agree that the only way of finding a solution to this terrible problem is through diplomatic pressure? Does he agree that, however genuine may be the revulsion of some hon. Members towards the Iraqi regime, this is not the time to malign that regime? Now is the time to look to Iraq to understand the seriousness of the implications for its role in the international community if it proceeds with these sentences.
§ Mr. WaldegraveI am grateful to my hon. Friend for what he has said, just as I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman). Today the House is trying to achieve a particular outcome—to save Mr. Bazoft's life and to get a reasonable sentence for Mrs. Parish. This is not the occasion for loose rhetoric, and the House is not indulging in it.
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. We have an important day on Northern Ireland matters ahead of us. I shall call two more Members from each side, and then we must move on.
§ Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North)Should not the House be concerned with truth and honesty as well as with desperately trying to save the life of the person involved? Does not Iraq have one of the worst records in repression and in denial of human rights? Has the right hon. Gentleman noted, arising from the case of these two people, the way in which the British media have rightly spotlighted what has been happening in Iraq? If the worst came to the worst and this killing took place, would not British public opinion certainly expect from the Government stern action, undoubtedly including economic sanctions and, if necessary, the breaking off of diplomatic relations, just as we did, with every justification, with Iran and Syria?
§ Mr. WaldegraveAs I said, I hope that the House will not press me today to go into further details on any steps that may or may not have to be taken. As the hon. Gentleman said, rightly, if these sentences were carried out, immense revulsion would be felt in this country.
§ Mr. Anthony Nelson (Chichester)Is my right hon. Friend aware that my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Smith) and I were visiting Mr. Ian Richter in Baghdad prison when Mr. Bazoft was arrested? Is he also aware that one of my constituents, Mr. John Smith, was released from a life sentence in Iraq the previous year? Therefore, I speak with some authority when I support the Govenment in their diplomatic efforts to secure some clemency and the release of Mr. Bazoft. I put it to my right hon. Friend that the important relationships between Iraq and this country cannot always depend on individuals and, if they act as imposters and fools—as some do—they invite some retribution upon them. But, in these instances, no one in his right mind would say that any crimes or offences that these people had committed were worthy of execution. I join the House in calling for clemency for Mr. Bazoft.
§ Mr. WaldegraveI am grateful to my hon. Friend for joining hon. Members on both sides of the House in their general call for clemency. That is a matter on which we should concentrate today.
§ Mr. Peter Hardy (Wentworth)I endorse the views expressed about human rights and the threat to journalistic freedom and note that the European Community has been involved. But will the Minister consider having early consultation with the Secretary-General of the Council of Europe, which has some responsibility for human rights, with a view to an approach by the 23 member states—and perhaps, significantly, the guest member states—to assist the case advanced by the Foreign Office?
§ Mr. WaldegraveThe hon. Gentleman makes another useful suggestion, and I shall certainly look into it.
§ Mr. Cyril D. Townsend (Bexleyheath)Although I commend the comments made by my hon. Friend the Minister and the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman and have no illusions whatever about the poor standard of human rights in Iraq, may I caution my hon. Friend about in any way reducing our diplomatic representation in that country in the weeks ahead, bearing in mind how easy Britain seems to find it to break off diplomatic relations and how hard we find it to restore them? Is not Iraq just the kind of country where we need our skilled diplomats to protect Britain's business and commercial interests and also British individuals?
§ Mr. WaldegraveMy own preference would be to keep our ambassador there, working for the interests of those in this case and of other Britons. As I said, at this stage we cannot rule out any step, but certainly we need the ambassador there at present.