UK man facing death for killing Australian pleads for clemency

Pressure mounts to commute the death sentence of a man said to be unhinged

THE parents of a British gun-for-hire contractor facing the death penalty in Iraq for shooting dead Queenslander Darren Hoare have pleaded for his life, saying he was unhinged by the horrors of war.

Daniel Fitzsimons's stepmother, Liz, and father Eric are pressing the British government to take up his case and secure clemency from the Iraqis.

Fitzsimons, 29, admits he shot dead fellow security contractors Hoare, 37, and Scotsman Paul McGuigan, 37, during a night of drinking and fighting in their quarters in Baghdad last August.

But he insists he fired in self-defence after being set upon by McGuigan and former RAAF man Hoare, of Willowbank, west of Brisbane, while he had been in bed, passed out on whisky.

After meeting British diplomats and justice officials in London at the weekend, Fitzsimons' parents revealed how, as a British soldier in Kosovo, he had been traumatised by the murder of a boy he had befriended. The child's severed head was discovered in a water main, they said.

In Iraq, where he worked for private security outfit ArmorGroup, Fitzsimons had seen a colleague burn to death in a truck hit by a roadside bomb.

"His friend screamed for Danny to get him out but Danny could not break the window as it was bulletproof glass," said Clive Stafford-Smith, director of the legal group Reprieve, which is helping the family. "He was forced to watch his friend burn inside the truck, unable to help."

In recent phone texts to a British newspaper, Fitzsimons describes shooting McGuigan with a handgun, then struggling with Hoare, who had lunged for the weapon.

"I fought with him for control of it. We were like animals," Fitzsimons told The Guardian.

However, he is unable to remember exactly what happened because "the booze had rushed" him. "We were literally wrapped together, arms and legs. Fighting and biting when the shots were fired," he said.

Fitzsimons's stepmother said the horrors he had witnessed as a British soldier and security contractor in Iraq had caused him to become mentally ill. "He has post-traumatic stress very badly," she said.

McGuigan's family, however, has rejected Fitzsimons' account of the night, pointing out that McGuigan had been speaking to his fiancee via webcam for most of it, and had given no sign that he had been drinking or fighting. They insist Fitzsimons' actions had been unprovoked.

Yesterday, Hoare's partner, Mollyjoe Collis, declined to speak when contacted by The Australian.

The amiable and well-regarded Hoare served with the RAAF as a base security specialist before leaving the Australian Defence Force to join ArmorGroup.