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:) http://www.abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters20000403_2664.html 04/03/2000 14:41:00 ET Rights campaigners break Iraq flight embargo BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A direct flight from the Jordanian capital Amman to Iraq landed at Baghdad airport Monday, breaking the 10-year-old U.N. embargo on flights to Iraq, witnesses said. The small plane, an Italian-made B-86, landed at 7:45 p.m. local time, carrying three Italians and a Frenchman. Aboard the aircraft were European Parliament member Vittorio Sgardi, French Catholic priest and filmmaker Jean-Marie Benjamin, who is also secretary general of Deato Angelico Foundation, Italian Nicola Grauso and Massimo Santo Paolo, an Italian journalist. They said in a statement they did not ask the United Nations for authorization. Their aim was to defy the stringent sanctions imposed on Baghdad by the U.N. in 1990, when Iraq invaded its neighbor Kuwait. The sanctions ban international flights from and into Iraq. "We request ... the secretary-general of the U.N., the member states of the Security Council and the (U.N. human rights commissioner) to intervene as soon as possible for the immediate and total lifting of the embargo ... and to implement rapid and effective aid for the country's reconstruction," the statement said. International human rights organizations have increasingly criticized the impact of the sanctions on the Iraqi people. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a discussion list run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq For removal from list, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk Full details of CASI's various lists can be found on the CASI website: http://welcome.to/casi