[Peace-discuss] Bush Convicted of War Crimes in Absentia--Yoo too!

Sun Nov 6 14:11:21 UTC 2016

Nothing like a kangaroo court with no rules of evidence that lets liars
like Boyle (if he were to have gone there) testify - Malaysia is clearly no
friend of the US and has been a place where liars like Leuren Moret, etc.
get plenty of opportunity to spread their lies -

Roger Helbig

On Sun, Nov 6, 2016 at 5:45 AM, Boyle, Francis A via Peace-discuss <
peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:

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> *From:* The Wisdom Fund [mailto:listserve at twf.org]
> *Sent:* Wednesday, May 23, 2012 5:16 PM
> *To:* Boyle, Francis A <fboyle at illinois.edu>
> *Subject:* Bush Convicted of War Crimes in Absentia
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> May 12, 2012
> Foreign Policy Journal
> Bush Convicted of War Crimes in Absentia
>
> by Yvonne Ridley
>
> 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.
>
> The witnesses also detailed how they have residual injuries till today.
>
> 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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