Twiggy Garcia, a Barman at London’s Tramshed recently made
an attempt to perform a citizen’s arrest on former prime-minister Tony Blair.
Why? For his allegedly illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003. Or possibly to claim
the bounty in place for such an act.
It was an ordinary night at work for Twiggy until Tony Blair
walked in with several people. At this point Twiggy calmly walked over and told
the former prime-minister that he was performing a citizen’s arrest over the
war crimes committed by ordering an invasion of Iraq. Tony Blair’s response
involved twisting the topic around to end up at the war with Syria. Twiggy was
pretty confused as he hadn’t expected a debate. After one of Blair’s sons went
to get security, Twiggy left, quitting his job there and then.
But it’s not all bad for the now jobless Twiggy as he does
have a bounty to collect. As it turns out for some time there’s been a site
around dedicated to this exact cause. You can donate money to encourage people
to attempt a citizen’s arrest on Blair, or you can attempt one yourself and
collect ¼ of the total raised funds. At the time of Twiggy’s attempt, that
stood to gain him about £2222.
The proprietors of the site are set in their opinion that
the Iraq war was illegal, as is much of the population. But it’s only a few
that believe that this will actually help their cause. Whether the war was
illegal or not, a citizen’s arrest on Blair will never be taken seriously. It’s
ridiculous. And the police are on side with the former-pm as they have
restrained previous attempters. There have been 5 attempts overall since the
site was started in 2010, with each attempter taking home around 2 grand, but
Twiggy’s is the most well-known so far.
Ari Carrington
@ari_carri