Says some bleeding heart who wasn't even born at the time. "The execution of one of Britain's most infamous traitors has been declared a miscarriage of justice by a top human rights lawyer. William Joyce, better known by the nickname Lord Haw Haw, was executed for treason 70 years ago following the end of the Second World War. Joyce, who was a Nazi sympathizer, fled to Germany following the outbreak of the war in 1939 and became well-known for radio broadcasts from Berlin back to Britain and the US. In his broadcasts, which were directed on behalf of senior Nazi Joseph Goebbels and his propaganda ministry, Joyce would affect a upper-class English accent, giving rise to the Lord Haw-Haw moniker. A member of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists before the war, Joyce used the broadcasts to denounce Jews and mock the war effort of Britain and its allies. Following the war Joyce has captured, much to the delight of people in Britain, and was put on trial for treason at the Old Bailey, eventually being found guilty in September 1945. However 70 years later, human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson has criticised the decision to execute Joyce, as he could not be guilty of treason given he was not a UK citizen. During BBC Radio 4's Treason on Trial programme, Mr Robertson said: 'Joyce, when he made these broadcasts, was an American living in Germany. 'It's one of those regrettable episodes, listed with Stephen Ward and the Birmingham Six. British justice has gone terribly wrong on a number of occasions.'" http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3425137/Lord-Haw-Haw-victim-miscarriage-justice-not-hanged-says-human-rights-lawyer.html#ixzz3yq9JCYZy
14463 Geoffrey Robertson is a media junky, WANKER! ...and I think the guilty verdict hinged on the fact that Joyce was issued a British passport. John 14472
His wife Margaret - a British born citizen - also broadcast from Germany and undoubtedly was guilty of treason. She was never tried. Why? There is speculation that her husband agreed to keep quiet about his involvement with MI5 in exchange for her liberty. There were reports saying that the British government thought she had suffered enough after his hanging. I do not believe that for one minute - a deal was done and nasty secrets were kept. Saying that, I have no sympathy for Lord Haw Haw.
Robertson is right that "British justice has gone terribly wrong on a number of occasions". Bending to accommodate the Human Rights Act and European Law in circumstances where they have no relevance to the people of Britain are just 2. Then again Robertson will not complain its how he makes his money. Just like those trying to pull troops through the courts for "war crimes". Now those solicitors do need trying and executing for treason. Brian
There is nothing new in this except the Daily Mail's inventiveness in claiming that William Joyce "fled to Germany following the outbreak of war in 1939", whereas he actually travelled to Germany about a week before Britain declared war. The trial and conviction of Joyce have been controversial ever since they took place. The essential facts are that Joyce was born in 1906 in New York of a UK couple who had emigrated and become naturalised Americans, making him a US citizen by both birth and parentage. The family returned permanently to the UK in 1909, and Joyce came to regard himself as if he were British, which was doubtless a factor in his joining the British Union of Fascists. In 1933 he decided to visit "the new Germany", making it necessary to obtain a passport. Instead of applying for a US passport, he applied for a British one, making the false declaration that he was a British citizen, born in the UK (British passport regulations at the time did not require the production of a birth certificate). The duly issued, but falsely obtained, passport expired, in accordance with the then regulations, after five years, in July 1938, but was renewable, for one year at a time, for up to a further five years. Joyce renewed in 1938, up to July 1939, and then again in 1939, up to July 1940. It was by means of this second renewal that Joyce was able to travel to Germany in late August 1939. Some time after arriving in Germany he obtained German citizenship, involving formal renunciation of his US citizenship. After his arrest by British troops in defeated Germany, identification, and deportation to Britain, the question of his potential prosecution for High Treason - "giving aid and comfort to His Majesty's enemies in time of war" - was investigated. It did not take long to establish that at no time in his life had Joyce ever been a British national or subject of His Majesty. There was no doubt that he had broken British law, and could be justly tried and convicted, but the offence was knowingly making a false declaration on an application for a British passport and twice repeating that false declaration. It might well have been thought ironically fitting that the self-appointed propagandist for supposed British interests during the war should be tried on a such a charge and humiliatingly exposed for the sham, non-Briton, that he was, and left to rot in jail for few years before disappearing into oblivion. However, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Attorney-General and others connived to bend the law of Treason to claim that its potential perpetration was not limited to British subjects, but could include anyone who at the time was deemed to be under the protection of His Majesty. To bend the law required some nifty paperwork. Joyce's broadcasts had been extensively monitored, not only as to content, but as to dates, and a chronological schedule was divided into three parts. the first ended in July 1940, and the other two covering the rest of the war between them. At the trial, the Prosecution very quickly had to concede that there was no case to answer on the second and third counts, from July 1940, as there was absolutely no way in which either a US citizen or a German citizen could be tried by a British court for events taking place in Germany. So the argument at the trial came down to whether the broadcasts between September 1939 and July 1940 could be deemed treasonable by virtue of the claim that for that particular period Joyce was the holder of British passport and thereby under the theoretical protection of His Majesty. Sufficient of the judiciary at the trial, the Court of Appeal, and the House of Lords were of such opinion as to uphold conviction, but the matter has remained controversial ever since and will continue to be so until the end of time. Geoffrey Robertson is only repeating what many eminent and counsel and judges have argued over the years. Bending the law to obtain a conviction is bad enough; bending the law on a capital charge is to descend to the depths out of which the Second World War was supposedly fought to rescue us.
