Citizens Promised Reward of $4,500 to Arrest Tony Blair

New Zealanders can earn thousands of dollars by arresting former British Prime Minister Tony Blair for the alleged war crimes committed during the illegal invasion of Iraq, says a press release issued by Global Peace and Justice Auckland.

GPJA is encouraging a citizen's arrest of Tony Blair who is visiting Auckland on Thursday to speak at a corporate fundraising lunch at Eden Park. Anyone successful in pulling off the arrest will earn $ 4,500, provided they meet with the criteria laid out by the organization.

"Up to one million Iraqi civilians have been killed since the 2003 attacks led by Tony Blair and former US President George Bush using lies and deceit to justify the outrage," the GPJA press release accused. "Iraq posed no immediate threat to any other country; there were no weapons of mass destruction and no plans or program to develop WMD."

"Tony Blair knew this but deceived the public and a gullible media because British multinationals wanted their share of the massive Iraqi oil reserves," the organization alleged.

A website www.arrestblair.com has been set up by George Monbiot, author of the best selling books "Heat: how to stop the planet burning" and "The Age of Consent: a manifesto for a new world order and Captive State" among others. Monbiot claims to pay "all the costs of administering this site" while the "money donated to this site will be only to pay bounties for attempts to arrest Tony Blair."

According to the website founder, the site stands to "remind people that justice has not yet been done" and to "show Blair that, despite his requests for people to "move on" from Iraq, the mass murder he committed will not be forgotten."

Monbiot also aims to "put pressure on the authorities of the United Kingdom and the countries he travels through to prosecute him for a crime against peace, or to deliver him for prosecution to the International Criminal Court" and "to discourage other people from repeating his crime."

Arrest Blair provides information on Tony Blair's schedule and formalities involved in Citizen Arrest. The site reports three earlier attempts made to arrest Blair.

According to Arrest Blair, the citizen arrest of Tony Blair has to abide by the following rules:

- The attempt is non-violent and causes no injury to Blair or those around him.

- The attempt is reported in at least one mainstream media outlet in a bulletin, program or article. The judgment of what is mainstream is at the discretion of those running this site. The purpose of this condition is to ensure that the attempted arrest has political consequences. Links to the report(s) must be sent with the application for the award.

- The claimant provides proof that he or she is the person mentioned in the report(s).

- The claimant applies for the award within 28 days of the attempt.

- If several people are involved in a single arrest attempt, one quarter of the total pot will be shared between them.

Monbiot says the attempts to arrest Blair at this stage, is "largely symbolic, but they will have great political resonance."