Bush Convicted of War Crimes in Absentia
Kuala Lumpur — It’s official; George W Bush is a war criminal.
In
what is the first ever conviction of its kind anywhere in the world,
the former US President and seven key members of his administration were
yesterday (Fri) found guilty of war crimes.
Bush, Dick Cheney,
Donald Rumsfeld and their legal advisers Alberto Gonzales, David
Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo were tried in absentia
in Malaysia.
The trial held in Kuala Lumpur heard harrowing
witness accounts from victims of torture who suffered at the hands of US
soldiers and contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.
They included
testimony from British man Moazzam Begg, an ex-Guantanamo detainee and
Iraqi woman Jameelah Abbas Hameedi who was tortured in the notorious Abu
Ghraib prison.
At the end of the week-long hearing, the
five-panel tribunal unanimously delivered guilty verdicts against Bush,
Cheney, Rumsfeld and their key legal advisors who were all convicted as
war criminals for torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment.
Full
transcripts of the charges, witness statements and other relevant
material will now be sent to the Chief Prosecutor of the International
Criminal Court, as well as the United Nations and the Security Council.
The
Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission is also asking that the names of
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Yoo, Bybee, Addington and Haynes be
entered and included in the Commission’s Register of War Criminals for
public record.
The tribunal is the initiative of Malaysia’s
retired Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who staunchly opposed the
American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
He sat through the entire
hearing as it took personal statements and testimonies of three
witnesses namely Abbas Abid, Moazzam Begg and Jameelah Hameedi. The
tribunal also heard two other Statutory Declarations of Iraqi citizen
Ali Shalal and Rahul Ahmed, another British citizen.
After the
guilty verdict reached by five senior judges was delivered, Mahathir
Mohamad said: “Powerful countries are getting away with murder.”
War
crimes expert and lawyer Francis Boyle, professor of international law
at the University of Illinois College of Law in America, was part of the
prosecution team.
After the case he said: “This is the first conviction of these people anywhere in the world.”
While
the hearing is regarded by some as being purely symbolic, human rights
activist Boyle said he was hopeful that Bush and Co could soon find
themselves facing similar trials elsewhere in the world.
“We tried
three times to get Bush in Canada but were thwarted by the Canadian
Government, then we scared Bush out of going to Switzerland. The Spanish
attempt failed because of the government there and the same happened in
Germany.”
Boyle then referenced the Nuremberg Charter which was
used as the format for the tribunal when asked about the credibility of
the initiative in Malaysia. He quoted: “Leaders, organizers, instigators
and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a
common plan or conspiracy to commit war crimes are responsible for all
acts performed by any person in execution of such a plan.”
The US
is subject to customary international law and to the Principles of the
Nuremberg Charter said Boyle who also believes the week-long trial was
“almost certainly” being monitored closely by both Pentagon and White
House officials.
Professor Gurdial Singh Nijar, who headed the
prosecution said: “The tribunal was very careful to adhere scrupulously
to the regulations drawn up by the Nuremberg courts and the
International Criminal Courts”.
He added that he was optimistic
the tribunal would be followed up elsewhere in the world where
“countries have a duty to try war criminals” and he cited the case of
the former Chilean dictator Augustine Pinochet who was arrested in
Britain to be extradited to Spain on charges of war crimes.
“Pinochet was only eight years out of his presidency when that happened.”
The
Pinochet case was the first time that several European judges applied
the principle of universal jurisdiction, declaring themselves competent
to judge crimes committed by former heads of state, despite local
amnesty laws.
Throughout the week the tribunal was packed with
legal experts and law students as witnesses gave testimony and then
cross examination by the defence led by lawyer Jason Kay Kit Leon.
The court heard how
- Abbas Abid, a 48-year-old engineer from Fallujah in Iraq had his fingernails removed by pliers.
- Ali Shalal was attached with bare electrical wires and electrocuted and hung from a wall.
- Moazzam Begg was beaten, hooded and put in solitary confinement.
- Jameelah was stripped and humiliated, and was used as a human shield whilst being transported by helicopter.
Moazzam
Begg, now working as a director for the London-based human rights group
Cageprisoners said he was delighted with the verdict, but added: “When
people talk about Nuremberg you have to remember those tried were all
prosecuted after the war.
“Right now Guantanamo is still open, people are still being held there and are still being tortured there.”
In
response to questions about the difference between the Bush and Obama
Administrations, he added: “If President Bush was the President of
extra-judicial torture then US President Barak Obama is the President of
extra judicial killing through drone strikes. Our work has only just
begun.”
The prosecution case rested on proving how the
decision-makers at the highest level President Bush, Vice-President
Cheney, Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld, aided and abetted by the lawyers
and the other commanders and CIA officials – all acted in concert.
Torture was systematically applied and became an accepted norm.
According
to the prosecution, the testimony of all the witnesses exposed a
sustained perpetration of brutal, barbaric, cruel and dehumanising
course of conduct against them.
These acts of crimes were applied cumulatively to inflict the worst possible pain and suffering, said lawyers.
The
president of the tribunal Tan Sri Dato Lamin bin Haji Mohd Yunus Lamin,
found that the prosecution had established beyond a “reasonable doubt
that the accused persons, former President George Bush and his
co-conspirators engaged in a web of instructions, memos, directives,
legal advice and action that established a common plan and purpose,
joint enterprise and/or conspiracy to commit the crimes of Torture and
War Crimes, including and not limited to a common plan and purpose to
commit the following crimes in relation to the “War on Terror” and the
wars launched by the U.S. and others in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
President
Lamin told a packed courtroom: “As a tribunal of conscience, the
Tribunal is fully aware that its verdict is merely declaratory in
nature. The tribunal has no power of enforcement, no power to impose any
custodial sentence on any one or more of the 8 convicted persons. What
we can do, under Article 31 of Chapter VI of Part 2 of the Charter is to
recommend to the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission to submit this
finding of conviction by the Tribunal, together with a record of these
proceedings, to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal
Court, as well as the United Nations and the Security Council.
“The
Tribunal also recommends to the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission that
the names of all the 8 convicted persons be entered and included in the
Commission’s Register of War Criminals and be publicised accordingly.
“The
Tribunal recommends to the War Crimes Commission to give the widest
international publicity to this conviction and grant of reparations, as
these are universal crimes for which there is a responsibility upon
nations to institute prosecutions if any of these Accused persons may
enter their jurisdictions”.
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