Theatre prosecutes Blair for war crimes

The Prime Minister is to be indicted for crimes of aggression against Iraq in a new play based on verbatim evidence from diplomats, MPs, intelligence experts and United Nations officials.

The Tricycle Theatre in London has hired Philippe Sands QC, a critic of the Iraq war from the Matrix chambers where Cherie Blair works, to act for the prosecution. The team has begun taking evidence, which will be used in a verbatim dramatisation of the case for and against, entitled Called to Account - The Indictment of Anthony Charles Lynton Blair for the Crime of Aggression against Iraq - a Hearing.

It will be premiered just before the local elections in May as the Prime Minister is preparing to stand down from office.

Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector, Sir Michael Quinlan, former permanent under-secretary at the Ministry of Defence, and the MPs Clare Short and Bob Marshall-Andrews are among those taking part.

Julian Knowles, a barrister who defended Sion Jenkins on the charge of murdering his foster daughter, will defend the Prime Minister.

Nicolas Kent, artistic director of the Tricycle, said he did not believe the theatre was being provocative. It was simply examining a war which had affected everybody's lives in Britain.

No conclusion would be reached, although the audience may be given a vote.