Abdul-Wahid Shannan ar-Ribat (Arabic: عبد الواحد شنان آل رباط) is a former Iraqi

Army An army, ground force or land force is an armed force that fights primarily on land. In the broadest sense, it is the land-based military branch, service branch or armed service of a nation or country. It may also include aviation assets by ...

general. Ribat, a Shiite, is from the city of Samawah in Muthanna province. He served as Governor of Nineveh from 17 September 1993 to 13 December 1995, during the reign of

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until Saddam Hussein statue destruction, his overthrow in 2003 during the 2003 invasion of Ira ...

. He then served as Chief of Staff of the Iraqi Army (from 1995 to 1999). He later went on to become the Governor of Nineveh for the 2nd term (on 8 May 2001), in which capacity he served until the appointment of the new governor by U. S. military administration on 5 May 2003 (after U. S. military occupation of the territory of Iraq, as a result of 2003 invasion of Iraq).

Reported death

On 14 June 2014 an Iraqi government spokesperson claimed Ribat was killed in a government airstrike on Mosul as part of the 2014 Northern Iraq Offensive. Ribat's family however refuted this, and claimed that he was alive and well in the United Arab Emirates, and had no contact with militant groups active in Iraq.

Prosecution of British government ministers

In 2016, he launched a private prosecution of the British Prime Minister,

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He was Leader ...

, at the time of the invasion of Iraq, as well as the Foreign Secretary,

Jack Straw John Whitaker Straw (born 3 August 1946) is a British politician who served in the Cabinet from 1997 to 2010 under the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He held two of the traditional Great Offices of State, as Home Secretar ...

, and the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith. He alleged that they had committed the

crime of aggression The crime of aggression was conceived by Soviet jurist Aron Trainin in the wake of the German invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II. Pictured: Stalingrad in ruins, December 1942 A crime of aggression or crime against peace is the p ...

by invading Iraq and based his evidence, in part, on the

Chilcot Inquiry The Iraq Inquiry (also referred to as the Chilcot Inquiry after its chairman, Sir John Chilcot)Michael Mansfield Michael Mansfield (born 12 October 1941) is an English barrister and head of chambers at Nexus Chambers. He was recently described as "The king of human rights work" by The Legal 500 and as a leading Silk in civil liberties and human rights ( ...

, QC, a prominent lawyer. His attempt to have the defendants arrested was dismissed by a District Judge at Westminster Magistrates Court in November 2016, but this has been appealed. The current Attorney General has intervened in the case to argue against. In July 2017, the London High Court ruled the prosecution had failed for three reasons: (1) In 2006, the

Law Lords Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, commonly known as Law Lords, were judges appointed under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 to the British House of Lords, as a committee of the House, effectively to exercise the judicial functions of the House of ...

had ruled that the crime of aggression is in fact not a crime in England and Wales; (2) The accused had governmental immunity at the time of their actions; (3) Ar-Ribat had not obtained the permission of the sitting UK Attorney General.

References

Governors of Nineveh Governorate Living people Iraqi generals People from Samawah 1944 births Iraqi military personnel of the Iran–Iraq War {{iraq-mil-bio-stub