[Peace-discuss] Fwd: SPANISH COURT OPENS TORTURE INQUIRY AGAINST GONZALES, ADDINGTON, YOO, OTHERS....

Sun Mar 29 22:44:32 CDT 2009

Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition!  --CGE

Jenifer Cartwright wrote:
> What lovely news!
> 
> --- On *Sat, 3/28/09, fransears at netscape.net * wrote:
> 
> 
> Sent <mailto:jencart13 at yahoo.Sent>: Sat, 28 Mar 2009 5:55 pm Subject: Fwd:
> SPANISH COURT OPENS TORTURE INQUIRY AGAINST GONZALES, ADDINGTON, YOO,
> OTHERS....
> 
> 
> 
> Begin forwarded message:
> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> <http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/>*Washington Monthly* 
>> <http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/>
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> *March 28, 2009* *By: **dday*
>> 
>> *SPANISH COURT OPENS TORTURE INQUIRY AGAINST GONZALES, ADDINGTON, YOO,
>> OTHERS....* Just off the press from the New York Times 
>> <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/world/europe/29spain.html?partner=rss&emc=rss>:
>>  A high-level Spanish court has taken the first steps toward opening a
>> criminal investigation against six former Bush administration officials,
>> including former Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, on whether they
>> violated international law by providing a legalistic framework to justify
>> the use of torture of American prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, an
>> official close to the case said. The case was sent to the prosecutor's
>> office for review by Baltasar Garzon, the crusading investigative judge who
>> indicted the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. The official said 
>> that it was "highly probable" that the case would go forward and could lead
>> to arrest warrants.
>> 
>> I would call this a big deal. As the report notes, Garzon indicted Augusto
>> Pinochet, which led to his arrest and extradition. This would not
>> immediately lead to arrest and trial, but it would certainly confine the
>> six officials to the United States and increase the pressure for stateside
>> investigations. Spanish courts have "universal jurisdiction" over human
>> rights abuses, under a 1985 law, particularly if they can be linked to
>> Spain. In the case against the former Bush administration officials, last 
>> week Judge Garzon linked it to an earlier case in which he indicted five
>> former Guantanamo Bay prisoners who were citizens or residents of Spain.
>> The Spanish Supreme Court had overturned a conviction of one of them,
>> saying that Guantanamo was "a legal limbo" and no evidence obtained under
>> torture could be valid in any of the countryâ€™s courts. The complaint was
>> filed by a Spanish human rights group, the Association for the Dignity of
>> Prisoners, to the National Court, which assigned the case to Judge Garzon.
>> After the complaint is reviewed by the prosecutor, a criminal investigation
>> would be likely to begin, the official said. If the case proceeds, arrest 
>> warrants could still be months away. The 98-page complaint, a copy of which
>> was obtained by The New York Times, was prepared by Spanish lawyers who
>> have also relied on legal experts in the United States and Europe. It bases
>> its case on the 1984 Convention Against Torture, which is binding on 145
>> countries including the United States.
>> 
>> The six officials in the inquiry are: â€¢ former Attorney General Alberto
>> Gonzales â€¢ John Yoo, the Justice Department attorney who authored the 
>> infamous "torture memo" â€¢ Jay Bybee, Yoo's superior at the Office of
>> Legal Counsel, also involved in the creation of torture memos â€¢ David
>> Addington, Dick Cheney's chief of staff and legal adviser â€¢ Douglas
>> Feith, the former undersecretary of defense for policy â€¢ William Haynes,
>> the legal counsel at the DoD The amount of material connecting these six to
>> the creation, authorization and direction of state-sanctioned illegal
>> torture, based on perverse and discredited reasoning, is voluminous, and 
>> given the record of Garzon, I would imagine this will lead to arrest
>> warrants. This story shows once again the growing global unease with the 
>> implicit policy of the United States to conveniently forget the torture and
>> other abuses of the Bush regime. In England, police are investigating
>> <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7965968.stm> whether British
>> intelligence officers knew about and prolonged the torture of Binyam
>> Mohamed, the recently released Guantanamo detainee. As Glenn Greenwald 
>> <http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/27/britain/index.html> 
>> notes, other countries have not abandoned their commitment to the rule of
>> law. As The Guardian reported 
>> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/27/binyam-mohamed-independent-inquiry>,
>>  the British Government was, in essence, forced into the criminal 
>> investigation once government lawyers "referred evidence of possible
>> criminal conduct by MI5 officers to home secretary Jacqui Smith, and she
>> passed it on to the attorney general." In a country that lives under what
>> is called the "rule of law," credible evidence of serious criminality makes
>> such an investigation, as The Guardian put it, "inevitable." British Prime
>> Minister Gordon Brown has clearly tried desperately to avoid any such 
>> investigation, yet as The Washington Post reported this morning 
>> <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/26/AR2009032601335.html?hpid=sec-world>,
>>  even he was forced to say in response: "I have always made clear that when
>> serious allegations are made they have got to be investigated." Wouldn't it
>> be nice if our government leaders could make a similar, extremely
>> uncontroversial statement -- credible allegations of lawbreaking by our
>> highest political leaders must be investigated and, if warranted,
>> prosecuted? In a country with a minimally healthy political culture, that
>> ought to be about as uncontroversial as it gets. Instead, what we have are
>> political leaders and media stars virtually across the board spouting 
>> lawless Orwellian phrases about being 
>> <http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/02/10/politics/100days/main4789627.shtml>
>>  "more interested in looking forward than in looking backwards" and not
>> wanting to "criminalize public service." 
>> <http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/337598/netroots_summit_grapples_with_bipartisan_attacks_on_rule_of_law>
>>  These apologist manuevers continue despite the fact that, as even 
>> conservative Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum recently acknowledged
>>  
>> <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/16/AR2009031602318.html>
>>  in light of newly disclosed detailed ICRC Reports, "that crimes were
>> committed is no longer in doubt."
>> 
>> The end of the NY Times article shows why the US can hardly claim that
>> Spain is acting irresponsibly beyond its own borders and violating the
>> soveriegnty of other nations, because in one recent case we did almost
>> exactly the same thing: The United States for the first time this year used
>> a law that allows for the prosecution in the United States of torture in 
>> other countries. On Jan. 10, a Miami court sentenced Charles Taylor, the
>> former Liberian leader, to 97 years in a federal prison for torture, even
>> though the crimes were committed in Liberia. Last October, when the Miami
>> court handed down the conviction, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey
>> applauded the ruling and said: "This is the first case in the United States
>> to charge an individual with criminal torture. I hope this case will serve
>> as a model to future prosecutions of this type."
>> 
>> So do I. —dday 
>> <http://us.mc449.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=d_dayen@yahoo.com> 4:00 PM
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