Profiting from crime
From the Guardian, 26 October 2007, page 12, by Michael White, reporting the prime minister's and justice minister's initiatives on liberty, etc.:
Mr Brown and Mr Straw … promised to … [devise] ways to curb criminals benefiting from payments for books and interviews
From the Guardian, 26 October 2007, page 10, by Michael White and Tania Branigan:
From No 10 to Random House: Blair signs book deal
- Publishers paid up to £5m for PM's memoirs
- 'Frank but not disloyal' account predicted
…Tony Blair has signed a deal to write his memoirs of life in Downing Street, the publisher Random House announced last night … Both the publisher and Mr Blair's spokesman refused to disclose his fee. But publishing experts suggested the deal was worth as much as £5m. The single volume memoir will be published under the Hutchinson imprint in the UK.
Perhaps war criminals will be exempt from the 'curb' on benefiting from the proceeds of publishing their memoirs.
Brian
What about the newspapers? At the time the Guardian was wobbling like a drunken cyclist but the Observer was 100% for war. Were they (and others) aiding and abetting?
Brian writes: An interesting point, Peter, but I doubt if a jury would convict any of the pro-war newspapers of aiding and abetting the crime of aggression since, unlike Blair, Straw and some others, they had not received legal advice that an attack on Iraq without UN authority would be illegal (although admittedly some of us managed to work that out for ourselves…). Moreover publishing approving comments on a crime, while misguided or worse, could hardly be described as aiding and abetting. Incitement, perhaps?