Cii News, Graphic: thetruthisnow.com – 30 August 2012

Extra security will be in place on Thursday to prevent anyone from trying to arrest former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, while he will be speaking at the Discovery Leadership Summit in Sandton, Johannesburg.

A website, arrestblair.org has promised and previously paid out large sums of money to anyone attempting to arrest him for war crimes resulting from the illegal war in Iraq in 2003.

Blair has been unapologetic for his joint venture with the US to illegally invade Iraq leaving hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead.

Protests led by the Al Jamaah political party were expected to take place in Sandton on Thursday starting at 2pm leading to road closures between 1pm and 5pm.

Ganief Hendricks, the party leader, said police have doubled their protest space outside the Convention Centre. They will also be demonstrating outside of the headquarters of Discovery Health.

“We hope that one of the demonstrators will be able to get an opportunity to affect an arrest. We are aware of the fact that that the security will be very tight.”

Blair has arrogantly defended his involvement in the mass killings of the Iraqi people.

Speaking to the The Star newspaper he said about the planned protests: ‘Why don’t you actually go and protest against the people doing the killing?’”.

“The vast majority of people dying from terrorist activity is Muslim on Muslim violence.”

Archbishop Emeritus, Desmod Tutu, who was also supposed to talk at the summit has withdrawn his participation because of the presence of Blair.

He said it would be inappropriate and untenable for him to share the stage with the former British leader.

“The archbishop has spent considerable time over the past few days wrestling with his conscience and taking counsel from trusted advisers with respect to his attendance at the event,” Tutu’s office said in a statement.

“Ultimately, the archbishop is of the view that Mr Blair’s decision to support the United States’ military invasion of Iraq, on the basis of unproven allegations of the existence in Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, was morally indefensible.”

Herschel Mayers, chief executive of Discovery Life, quoted by The Times said yesterday that Blair will have his own protection service and that additional security will be provided.

“Discovery Invest’s Leadership Summit is a tightly stage-managed affair with the speakers being quite a distance from the attendees, leaving little chance of someone sneaking up on Blair, putting a hand on his shoulder and saying (as suggested on the website),” the newspaper noted.

An urgent application for an arrest warrant for Blair was also lodged earlier this week with the National Prosecuting Authority by the Society for the Protection of the Constitution.

The group wants Blair to appear in front of the International Criminal Court.