RAF doctor sent to jail for refusing to serve in Iraq
In an astonishing legal precedent a UK judge has ruled that the legality of the invasion of Iraq was irrelevant to the case of an RAF doctor who refused to go to there on grounds of principle. The court yesterday sentenced Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith, 37, to eight months imprisonment.
I thought the whole concept of justice recognised at Nuremberg was that soldiers were not allowed to rely on the defence of "I was simply following orders" and that they had a moral responsibility to speak out when they believed they were being asked to take part in illegal actions?
Judge advocate Jack Bayliss appears to be turning international law on it's head here.
If an officer disagreed with the moral position of the government, the judge said, the honourable thing to do would be to resign. Kendall-Smith should have done that in 2004 after deciding the presence of British troops in Iraq was illegal.The judge continued: "Obedience of orders is at the heart of any disciplined force. Refusal to obey orders means that the force is not a disciplined force but a rabble." A non-custodial sentence "would send a message to all those who wear the Queen's uniform that it does not matter if they refuse to carry out the policy of Her Majesty's government".
In a statement outside the court at Aldershot in Hampshire, the defence lawyer Justin Hugheston-Roberts said Kendall-Smith, who was also dismissed from the RAF yesterday, felt his actions were "totally justified.
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