Or more likely a test of the will of the UK government.
A UK coroner, who yesterday ruled that ITN newsman Terry Lloyd was unlawfully killed by US troops in Iraq in 2003, has said that he will write to the Office for Public Prosecutions and the attorney general "to see whether any steps can be taken to bring the perpetrators responsible for this to justice".
Lloyds wife said that American soldiers behaved "like trigger-happy cowboys in an area in which there were civilians travelling on a highway...The marines who fired on civilians and those who gave those orders should now stand trial. Under the Geneva Conventions Act, that trial should be for the murder of Terry Lloyd and nothing less."
A the end of September the US Senate finally ratified a revised UK-US extradition treaty that Britain had already unilaterally implemented to the detriment of its citizens. (Just ask the "NatWest three".)
Will the British government have the courage to challenge the US and request extradition of the soldiers believed responsible. The American government refused to make the soldiers available for the inquest and the coroner did not take into consideration what he termed their anonymous "self-serving statements". The US did submit a video tape of part of the incident but which did not contain the critical moments when Lloyd walked to his van. It is believed that the tape may have been edited with as much as fifteen minutes missing. (What Rosemary Wood was doing in Iraq is anyone's guess. She is supposed to be dead!)
I hope the government has the required courage. I sincerely doubt that they do. If they do perhaps the blatant hubris and arrogant hypocrisy of the American administration will be laid bare for all to see.
Of course the right side of blogsphere have reacted with typical aplomb.
A UK coroner, who yesterday ruled that ITN newsman Terry Lloyd was unlawfully killed by US troops in Iraq in 2003, has said that he will write to the Office for Public Prosecutions and the attorney general "to see whether any steps can be taken to bring the perpetrators responsible for this to justice".
Lloyds wife said that American soldiers behaved "like trigger-happy cowboys in an area in which there were civilians travelling on a highway...The marines who fired on civilians and those who gave those orders should now stand trial. Under the Geneva Conventions Act, that trial should be for the murder of Terry Lloyd and nothing less."
A the end of September the US Senate finally ratified a revised UK-US extradition treaty that Britain had already unilaterally implemented to the detriment of its citizens. (Just ask the "NatWest three".)
Will the British government have the courage to challenge the US and request extradition of the soldiers believed responsible. The American government refused to make the soldiers available for the inquest and the coroner did not take into consideration what he termed their anonymous "self-serving statements". The US did submit a video tape of part of the incident but which did not contain the critical moments when Lloyd walked to his van. It is believed that the tape may have been edited with as much as fifteen minutes missing. (What Rosemary Wood was doing in Iraq is anyone's guess. She is supposed to be dead!)
I hope the government has the required courage. I sincerely doubt that they do. If they do perhaps the blatant hubris and arrogant hypocrisy of the American administration will be laid bare for all to see.
Of course the right side of blogsphere have reacted with typical aplomb.
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