Talk:Farzad Bazoft

Building Society Robbery

Didn't this person rob a building society in the UK? Why is it not mentioned in the article?

3.90: Iraq arrests and later executes British journalist Farzad Bazoft, after he investigated explosions in a factory near Baghdad thought to be manufacturing missiles. Initially the British Evening Standard newspaper called for a breaking off of relations with "…this stupid and brutal regime." But 24 hours after Bazoft was hung, The Sun newspaper led with a story reportedly provided by Ml5: "HANGED MAN WAS A ROBBER." As a student ten years earlier, Bazoft had stolen £500 from a building society. The Sunday Telegraph newspaper ran an article, questioning journalistic integrity under the headline: "WHEN INNOCENCE CAN EQUAL GUILT."

Source

Bjddavies2006 07:47, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

• "The Sun newspaper led with a story reportedly provided by Ml5: "HANGED MAN WAS A ROBBER." As a student ten years earlier, Bazoft had stolen £500 from a building society."

• Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. I'm not sure it's entirely relevant to anything. Or do we now enter every detail, of every criminal record, on every biographical article? Anyhow, the above link is 'heresay', it simply repeats what someone else (The Sun) might, or might not, have printed 17 years ago.

• I think a better reference would be required to enter the information into the article, if there were any point in doing so. Stephenjh 08:17, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Web references for things that happened pre-1998 are hard to come by. That was the best I could find. The only hard and fast way would be to find a microfilm of the local Brackley newspaper (Brackley, Northamptonshire was the town where he robbed the building society). Finding a web reference for a minor (from a national point of view anyway) incident that happened in 1981 would be well nigh impossible.

I think he was given an easy ride by the press of the day, being that he was a journalist and all. From my recollection the excuse given was that he was a hard up student and needed the money.

My point is that he was already a felon in the UK did not help gain the sympathy of the British people and the fact that he did undercover work in one of the most authoritarian regimes of the world (also a felony I believe) was an act of extreme stupidity for which he paid with his life.

I found this article on Bazoft from the Margaret Thatcher article. I am sure that the Thatcher cabinet were aware of his past felony when they were making the decisions on what to do to help him.

Bjddavies2006 21:28, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

• I don't know what source this information comes from, sure I can follow the link given above, but what is that website? who owns it? who runs it? Where do they get their information? It probably doesn't fulfill the requirements for use as a source in a Wikipedia article for instance.

• I don't understand why you think he was given "an easy ride" either (or why that should be of any importance). If this incident took place, it was apparently 10 years earlier and has no relevance to what happened in Iraq. If he stole £500, how was this done? Was it a clerical error in his favour that was undisclosed, or was it armed robbery? Where was he tried? what was the result?

• Your use of the term 'felon' is questionable too, especially without proof of conviction. Nor was what he did in Iraq a 'felony' either. If you read the article you will see that there was no 'stupidity' involved, he informed the Iraqi officials as to what he was doing and they were fully aware.

• I don't think this (as yet) unproven, unsourced, and irrelevant accusation should be within the article, come to think of it, I'm not sure it should be on the discussion page either and I nominate this page for a blanking.Stephenjh (talk) 07:53, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I knew him very well at that time, and can confirm that the story is accurate. He and his family were from Abadan in Iran, and were ruined, first by the revolution and then when Saddam Hussien launched his attack against Iran, most of the city was destroyed in the opening battles, including their house and all their possesions. I recall him becoming particularly desparate for money to support his mother and brother who he had managed to get until one day, we heard that he had gone into a building society with a suitcase full of bricks and told them it was a bomb - they gave him £500. He was no way a natural or habitual criminal, the worst you could say was that he had become mentally unbalanced. His actions were purely out of desperation, a fact recognised at the time by both the police and the courts. If you are looking for written proof, the Banbury Guardian would be a better bet. His death was widely reported at the time in the paper as he had been a student at the Town's FE college, which is where I met him. If there is anyone still there from those days they will certainly remember it.

Also, the stuff about him coming to UK in the 1980's is not true. I was at the FE college with him during 1976 to 1978, and I understood that he had been at another English school before that. Dont know if this helps, but that is the truth of it, from my recollection.

mjminogue 22:40, 02 August 2010 (British Summer Time)

Vandalism /

There seems to be WP:SPA editor(s) popping up on this article every now and again vandalising/POV pushing. Widefox; talk 14:21, 2 September 2012 (UTC)