Barman's Tony Blair 'arrest' earns him £2,222 bounty

A BARMAN who tried to place Tony Blair under citizen's arrest in a London restaurant has been paid a £2,222 bounty for his efforts.

Twiggy Garcia, who was working at the fashionable Tramshed restaurant in Shoreditch when he attempted to take Blair into custody, was paid the bounty by the Arrest Blair website. The site, set up by the journalist George Monibot, encourages people to put the former PM under arrest for "crimes against peace".

Garcia said he had wanted to arrest Blair "for a few years" after seeing the arrestblair.org website.

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"I believe Blair is responsible for the mass murder of Iraqi civilians after taking our country into an illegal war, breaking articles 31 and 51 of the UN charter, of which the UK is a signatory," Garcia told his girlfriend, Georgia Bronte, who also writes for the website Vice.

After consulting the arrestblair.org site to check the correct way to make a citizen's arrest, an extremely nervous Garcia went over to Blair's table. "I put my hand on his shoulder and said: ‘Mr Blair, this is a citizen's arrest for a crime against peace, namely your decision to launch an unprovoked war against Iraq. I am inviting you to accompany me to a police station to answer the charge'."

Not surprisingly, Blair did not comply. While one of his sons left the table to summon a plain clothes security officer, the former PM began "debating" Middle Eastern politics with a surprised Garcia.

"He kept changing the subject and talking about Syria," Garcia told Vice. "He said, 'I think you should be more concerned about Syria, to be honest'." Garcia didn't wait for the arrival of the police officer. He "quit his job there and then", says The Independent and hasn't been back to the Tramshed since.

A spokesman for Blair told the Independent: "There is nothing to report here apart from the fact that Mr Blair did offer to discuss the issue - that offer was declined and the individual walked off. Nothing else happened. Everyone is fine and they had a great time."

Garcia is the fifth person to try to place Blair under citizen's arrest since the arrestblair.org bounty was announced.