We call this series a “casebook of murderers,” but there’s no suggestion that Farzad Bazoft ever killed anyone. However, Iraq is a dangerous place at the best of times, and as an Iranian journalist who chose to work there for the Observer newspaper, he was regarded as a distinct enemy. Together with an English nurse, Daphne Parish, he went to a rocket-testing base near Baghdad, having heard that an explosion there had “killed hundreds,” and took soil samples.

They were arrested for spying and, in March 1990, tried by a military court. Bazoft was sentenced to death, Mrs. Parish to 15 years. Despite protests from the Observer, the British Government and other countries, Bazoft was hanged at dawn on Friday, March 16th, 1990, at Baghdad Central Prison. Four months later Mrs. Parish was released and deported to Britain.