“Our lawyer has drafted a motion to dismiss the case and return our father immediately, which requires the support of the Foreign Ministry to be submitted to the Iraqi judiciary.” Speaking to The Telegraph, Mr Tasker said:[He took] small broken pieces of stone and pottery fragments. “The way Jim described us in a short conversation is basically that people on the trip asked the question ‘Oh, it’s going to be okay?’ You know? I mean, and the response from the guides was essentially “Yes, that would be fine.” These pieces are pieces of broken rock, right? There is no value, neither economic nor cultural, in these objects. “But the Iraqi government or the judiciary during the investigation phase sent them to the National Museum of Iraq to analyze these pieces.” According to Mr. Tasker, the pieces were found to be man-made and over 200 years old, considering the artifacts of cultural significance – so Fitton could face the death penalty. “Obviously there is no criminal intent here,” Tasker said. He likened his father-in-law’s room to “something outside of Indiana Jones”, with “ink drawings of beautiful architecture from around the world and bookshelves full of travel guides”, adding that he “always respected other cultures”.
