Posted on 06/25/2008 10:39:30 PM PDT by forkinsocket
Boris Johnson, a former journalist, gives police the item, which had belonged to Iraqi official Tarik Aziz. Johnson blames political opponents for launching an "idiotic" probe.
LONDON -- In the smoke-filled rooms of backroom politics here, it was only natural that a cigar case with a storied past would become convenient fodder for scandal.
After months of smoldering controversy, London Mayor Boris Johnson appeared to put the matter to rest this week by handing over to Scotland Yard the item in question: a leather cigar case belonging to Iraq's former deputy prime minister, Tarik Aziz, scavenged by the mayor himself from the rubble-strewn floor of a Baghdad villa shortly after the debut of the war in Iraq.
Johnson was defiant Tuesday, accusing his political opponents of launching a "time-wastingly idiotic" criminal investigation of his possession of the case, considered an Iraqi cultural treasure. He also insisted that Aziz's lawyers had informed him that the former Iraqi official "wishes me to regard the cigar case as a gift."
Too late. By Tuesday morning, it had been booked into evidence.
"We can confirm that the item in question was taken into police custody . . . and it will remain with the police until further inquiries are carried out," said a Metropolitan Police spokesman, speaking on standard conditions of anonymity.
He said an unnamed person handed over the cigar case because it was believed to be "an item of Iraqi cultural property," which under United Nations regulations must be transferred to the police. Failure to do so constitutes a criminal offense, the spokesman said, "unless the person can prove that they were unaware it was an item of cultural significance."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Red Ken - meet Pink Boris.
Red Ken - meet Pink Boris.
They've got stuff that's 6,000 years old there...and they're freakin' about a cigar case?
OK...
In that case my humidor is a National Historic site. Churchill is in there.
Why is it that every time I hear the word “cigar” I think of a certain former U.S. president from Hope, Arkansas?
Must give Bubba credit for ingenuity. Who’d have thunk a fat intern’s vajayjay could double as a humidor ?
How absurd. How did they even know he had it? Why they say “an unnamed person” when we know it was Johnson?
He should have publicly lit it on fire instead.
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