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AN IRISH journalist has told how he tried to execute a citizen’s arrest in Brussels of former British prime minister Tony Blair over alleged “war crimes”.

David Cronin, a Dubliner who was press spokesman in the late 1990s for then Green MEP Patricia McKenna, said he tried to arrest Mr Blair in the European Parliament on Monday afternoon as he prepared to address a committee on his work as Middle East peace envoy. “I approached him and put my hand on his arm. He looked towards me and I said, ‘Mr Blair, this is a citizen’s arrest’, before I was pushed away by one of the several bodyguards surrounding him. As they pushed me, I shouted, ‘You are guilty of war crimes’,” he said. “My motivation in trying to arrest Blair is entirely based on my contempt for the crimes he has committed and abetted in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon and Serbia.”