# James Le Mesurier obituary



## daftandbarmy (13 Nov 2019)

James Le Mesurier obituary 


Former British Army officer who co-founded the White Helmets civil defence group in Syria 

In early 2002, a young former British Army captain arrived in Jerusalem for a sensitive project. His job was to help run a prison in Jericho to hold six detainees who had been barricaded with Yasser Arafat in the Palestinian leader’s headquarters in Ramallah.

It was the first of many roles that immersed James Le Mesurier in the Middle East over the next 17 years, and which ended with his death in Istanbul this week at the age of 48. From the peak of the Palestinian intifada to the savagery of Iraq, the insatiable ambitions of the Gulf states and the blood-sodden soil of Syria, where in 2014 he co-founded the volunteer rescue group the White Helmets, Le Mesurier had a vantage point like few others.

Through his experience on the ground, working in security and as a humanitarian co-ordinator, Le Mesurier became convinced that the conventional models of stabilisation run by big-budget contractors in the region were dysfunctional, and that the only viable path to recovery was through empowering and engaging local communities.

The career he carved was perhaps unique among long-term expatriates there; it was certainly among the most scrutinised and, in recent years, among the most slandered. Stabilisation – and what the term really meant – became central to Le Mesurier’s work as he crossed a broken region, taking an ever deepening personal stake in the events that were shaping it. 

Born in Singapore to Benjamin Le Mesurier, who became lieutenant-colonel and commandant of the Royal Marines, and his wife, Ewa-Lotta, James went to Canford school in Dorset before starting at Ulster University, where he joined the Queen’s Belfast Officer Training Corps. Being a cadet in Northern Ireland was difficult at the time, and he switched to Aberystwyth University, where he took a degree in international relations and strategic studies. Sandhurst followed; there he topped his officer cadet intake, winning the Queen’s medal for character and leadership in 1993.

He made his name as a young captain with the Royal Green Jackets in Kosovo, where he was inspired by the efforts to reintegrate the Kosovo Liberation Army into civil defence roles, before joining the UN mission there as an adviser. That role, under Nick Carter (now General Sir Nick Carter, chief of defence staff), became a springboard to Jericho after he left the army in 2000.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/13/james-le-mesurier-obituary


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## AbdullahD (14 Nov 2019)

May he rest in peace


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## The Bread Guy (3 Mar 2020)

Turkish authorities:  no foul play ...


> Turkish prosecutors on Monday closed the case on the death of James Gustaf Edward Le Mesurier, a former British intelligence officer who fell to his death in Istanbul last November.
> 
> The Chief Prosecutor’s Office ruled that Le Mesurier died of a fall from a great height, dispelling allegations that he might have been murdered.
> 
> ...


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