Tony Blair should stand trial on charges of war crimes if the evidence suggests he broke international law over the “illegal” Iraq war in 2003, the Labour leadership frontrunner Jeremy Corbyn has said.Corbyn called on the former prime minister to “confess” the understandings he reached with George W Bush in the run up to the invasion.
Asked on BBC Newsnight whether Blair should stand trial on war crimes charges, Corbyn said: “If he has committed a war crime, yes. Everybody who has committed a war crime should be.”
The veteran MP for Islington North was a high-profile opponent of the war and became a leading member of the Stop the War coalition. He said: “It was an illegal war. I am confident about that. Indeed Kofi Annan [UN secretary general at the time of the war] confirmed it was an illegal war and therefore [Tony Blair] has to explain to that. Is he going to be tried for it? I don’t know. Could he be tried for it? Possibly.”