Executed Journalist Had Criminal Past

LONDON —  The criminal past of executed journalist Farzad Bazoft added more intrigue Friday to an alleged espionage case that has soured relations between Iraq and Britain.

A day after the Iranian-born exile was hanged in Baghdad, provoking official outrage in London, news that he was a bank robber who had served a year in a British prison was splashed across the front pages of national tabloid newspapers.

British officials said Bazoft had served a year in prison in 1981 for robbing a savings and loan office north of London. He escaped with $760 after threatening to detonate a bomb unless the money was handed over.

Bazoft, 31, was sentenced to death last Saturday by an Iraqi revolutionary court that found him guilty of spying. Though he made a confession on Iraqi television, he denied the charges in court.