Iraqis Protest British Reaction to ‘Spy’ Hanging

Tens of thousands of Iraqi protesters marched in the capital and other cities Saturday to express anger at the British measures taken to censure Iraq for hanging a London-based journalist accused of spying.

Also Saturday, President Saddam Hussein flew to Saudi Arabia for consultations with King Fahd. The official Saudi Press Agency said Fahd invited Hussein after the international uproar over the execution of Farzad Bazoft. The 31-year-old Iranian-born journalist worked for the Observer, a British newspaper.

No details of their talks were released.

Demonstrators swept through the streets of all major Iraqi cities chanting support for Hussein’s decision, state-run Baghdad Radio said. Bazoft was hanged Thursday, four days after a closed-door revolutionary security court sentenced him to death. He denied the charges of spying for Israel and Britain.

After the execution, Britain withdrew its ambassador, expelled six Iraqi military students and canceled all ministerial visits. But it resisted demands to break off relations and impose economic sanctions.

Officials of the ruling Arab Baath Socialist Party estimated that 100,000 people turned out in Baghdad. No violence was reported.

Demonstrators sent a cable to Hussein urging him to take a tougher position against Britain.

“Chop off the heads of all spies and silence their dirty tongues,” said the cable, broadcast on the state-run radio.

Radio reports also said the protesters handed a letter of protest to the British Embassy press officer expressing outrage over London’s denunciation of the execution.

The embassy was ringed by police officers and plainclothes security agents. No embassy personnel were seen in the compound.

Iraqi newspapers focused on Bazoft’s criminal record in Britain. He served a year in prison in 1981-82 for robbing a savings and loan office of $764 while he was a student living in central England.

Bazoft was arrested in September along with British nurse Daphne Parish while he was investigating reports of a major explosion at a secret Iraqi military research complex south of Baghdad.

Parish was sentenced to 15 years in prison.