Briton facing Iraq murder charges sent for psychiatric tests

A former British paratrooper accused of shooting dead two security guard colleagues in Iraq was sent for psychiatric evaluation today, minutes after his trial began in Baghdad. Daniel Fitzsimons, 29, seemed composed and attentive as he appeared in court for the first time since allegedly shooting dead Briton Paul McGuigan and Australian Darren Hoare, both 37. A third man, Arkan Mehdi Saleh, whom Fitzsimons also allegedly shot and wounded early on 8 August last year stood alongside him as Judge Abdullah al-Alusi adjourned the trial until 18 February. After the proceedings, Fitzsimons, originally from Rochdale in Lancashire, said the British government had offered him little assistance and "seem to want me to be tried in this country". "I accept that I will be tried here," Fitzsimons said, but I expect to serve my time in the UK where my trial can be looked at and I can be offered some support. When my side of the story gets out, the people who have labelled me as a murdering psycho will be eating humble pie." Fitzsimons, the first foreign national to face a potential death sentence since a security agreement between the departing US military and Iraq came into force on 30 June last year, offered more detail about his version of the events of 8 August. He said that a second man, named Kev, had been with him in his room in Baghdad's fortified green zone before McGuigan and Hoare came to his room, allegedly to taunt him. "They came in to wind me up," he said. "I didn't know either of them from Adam. The big guy was taunting me, so I punched him. Then we made friends again, then we fought and it went on like that. Then they left. But then later they came back. Those fuckers came to my room to do me in and they tried to do me in." Fitzsimons, who had been treated by a psychiatrist in the UK for post-traumatic stress disorder after five tours of Iraq as a security guard and a soldier, said he had been overjoyed to return to Iraq last summer. He had been unemployed for many months since being released from prison. "I wanted to be in this country," he said. "This is the only life that I have known and the question of whether or not I should have been here is a question for someone else to answer. "Many people here have been treated for PTSD," he added. "There are so many of us out here that I don't know who hasn't. Everything is kept hidden because people want to work."