[Peace] FW: ICC Complaint Against Bush, Cheney et al

Thu Jan 21 08:26:12 CST 2010

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (Voice)
217-244-1478 (Fax)
(personal comments only)

________________________________

From: Lawyers Against The War [mailto:law at portal.ca] 
Sent: Wednesday, January 20, 2010 7:11 AM
To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;
Subject: ICC Complaint Against Bush, Cheney et al

INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT COMPLAINT FILED AGAINST BUSH, CHENEY,
RUMSFELD, TENET, RICE AND GONZALES; INTERNATIONAL ARREST WARRANTS
REQUESTED 

Champaign, U.S.A./The Hague, Netherlands (19 Jan 2010). -- Professor
Francis A. Boyle of the University of Illinois College of Law in
Champaign, U.S.A. has filed a Complaint with the Prosecutor for the
International Criminal Court (I.C.C.) in The Hague against U.S. citizens
George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet,
Condoleezza Rice, and Alberto Gonzales (the "Accused") for their
criminal policy and practice of "extraordinary rendition" perpetrated
upon about 100 human beings.  This term is really their euphemism for
the enforced disappearance of persons and their consequent torture.
This criminal policy and practice by the Accused constitute Crimes
against Humanity in violation of the Rome Statute establishing the
I.C.C.  

The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute.  Nevertheless the
Accused have ordered and been responsible for the commission of I.C.C.
statutory crimes within the respective territories of many I.C.C. member
states, including several in Europe.  Consequently, the I.C.C. has
jurisdiction to prosecute the Accused for their I.C.C. statutory crimes
under Rome Statute article 12(2)(a) that affords the I.C.C. jurisdiction
to prosecute for I.C.C. statutory crimes committed in I.C.C. member
states.  

The Complaint requests (1) that the I.C.C. Prosecutor open an
investigation of the Accused on his own accord under Rome Statute
article 15(1); and (2) that the I.C.C. Prosecutor also formally "submit
to the [I.C.C.] Pre-Trial Chamber a request for authorization of an
investigation" of the Accused under Rome Statute article 15(3).

For similar reasons, the Highest Level Officials of the Obama
administration risk the filing of a follow-up Complaint with the I.C.C.
if they do not immediately terminate the Accused's criminal policy and
practice of "extraordinary rendition," which the Obama administration
has continued to implement. 

The Complaint concludes with a request that the I.C.C. Prosecutor obtain
International Arrest Warrants for the Accused from the I.C.C. in
accordance with Rome Statute articles 58(1)(a), 58(1)(b)(i),
58(1)(b)(ii), and 58(1)(b)(iii).  

In order to demonstrate your support for this Complaint you can contact
the I.C.C. Prosecutor by letter, fax, or email as indicated below.  

Francis A. Boyle

Professor of International Law

Law Building

504 East Pennsylvania Avenue

Champaign, Illinois  61820

Phone:  217-333-7954

Fax:  217-244-1478

The Honorable Luis Moreno-Ocampo

Office of the Prosecutor

International Criminal Court

Post Office Box 19519

2500 CM, The Hague

The Netherlands

Fax No.: 31-70-515-8555

Email:  OTP.InformationDesk at icc-cpi.int

January 19, 2010

Dear Sir:

            Please accept my personal compliments.   I have the honor
hereby to file with you and the International Criminal Court this
Complaint against U.S. citizens George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald
Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Condoleezza Rice , and Alberto Gonzales
(hereinafter referred to as the "Accused") for their criminal policy and
practice of "extraordinary rendition." This term is really a euphemism
for the enforced disappearances of persons, their torture, severe
deprivation of their liberty, their violent sexual abuse, and other
inhumane acts perpetrated upon these Victims.  The Accused have
inflicted this criminal policy and practice of "extraordinary rendition"
upon about one hundred (100) human beings, almost all of whom are
Muslims/Arabs/Asians and People of Color.  I doubt very seriously that
the Accused would have inflicted these criminal practices upon 100 White
Judeo-Christian men.  

The Accused's criminal policy and practice of "extraordinary rendition"
are both "widespread" and "systematic" within the meaning of Rome
Statute article 7(1).  Therefore the Accused have committed numerous
"Crimes against Humanity" in flagrant and repeated and longstanding
violation of Rome Statute articles 5(1)(b), 7(1)(a), 7(1)(e), 7(1)(f),
7(1)(g), 7(1)(h), 7(1)(i), and 7(1)(k).  Furthermore, the Accused's Rome
Statute Crimes Against Humanity of enforced disappearances of persons
constitutes ongoing criminal activity that continues even as of today.

The United States is not a contracting party to the Rome Statute.
Nevertheless, the Accused ordered and were responsible for the
commission of these I.C.C. statutory crimes on, in, and over the
respective territories of several I.C.C. member states, including many
located in Europe.  Therefore, the I.C.C. has jurisdiction over the
Accused for their I.C.C. statutory crimes in accordance with Rome
Statute article 12(2)(a), which provides as follows:

Article 12

Preconditions to the Exercise of Jurisdiction

...

     2.  In the case of article 13, paragraph (a) or (c), the Court may
exercise its jurisdiction if one or more of the following States are
Parties to this Statute or have accepted the jurisdiction of the Court
in accordance with paragraph 3:

(a)   The State on the territory of which the conduct in question
occurred  ...

So the fact that United States is not a contracting party to the Rome
Statute is no bar to the I.C.C.'s prosecution of the Accused because
they have ordered and been responsible for the commission of Rome
Statute Crimes against Humanity on, in, and over the respective
territories of several I.C.C. member states.  

Consequently, I  hereby respectfully request that the Court exercise its
jurisdiction over the Accused for these Crimes against Humanity in
accordance with Rome Statute article 13(c), which provides as follows:

Article 13

Exercise of Jurisdiction

     The Court may exercise its jurisdiction with respect to a crime
referred to in article 5 in accordance with the provisions of this
Statute if:

        ...

(c)    The Prosecutor has initiated an investigation in respect of such
a crime in accordance with article 15.

Pursuant to Rome Statute article 13(c), I hereby respectfully request
that you initiate an investigation proprio motu against the Accused in
accordance with Rome Statute article 15(1): "The Prosecutor may initiate
investigations proprio motu on the basis of information on crimes within
the jurisdiction of the Court."  My detailed Complaint against the
Accused constitutes the sufficient "information" required by article
15(1).

            Furthermore, I respectfully submit that this Complaint by
itself constitutes "a reasonable basis to proceed with an investigation"
under Rome Statute article 15(3).  Hence, I also respectfully request
that you formally "submit to the Pre-Trial Chamber a request for
authorization of an investigation" of the Accused under Rome Statute
article 15(3) at this time.  Please inform me at your earliest
convenience about the status and disposition of my two requests set
forth immediately above.

Based upon your extensive human rights work in Argentina, you know full
well from direct personal experience the terrors and the horrors of
enforced disappearances of persons and their consequent torture.
According to reputable news media sources here in the United States,
about 100 human beings have been subjected to enforced disappearances
and subsequent torture by the Accused. We still have no accounting for
these Victims. In other words, many of these Victims of enforced
disappearances and torture by the Accused could still be alive today.
Their very lives are at stake right now as we communicate.  You could
very well save some of their lives by publicly stating that you are
opening an investigation of my Complaint.

As for those Victims of enforced disappearances by the Accused who have
died, your opening an investigation of my Complaint is the only means by
which we might be able to obtain some explanation and accounting for
their whereabouts and the location of their remains in order to
communicate this critical information to their next-of-kin and
loved-ones.  Based upon your extensive experience combating enforced
disappearances of persons and their consequent torture in Argentina, you
know full well how important that objective is.  The next-of-kin,
loved-ones, and friends of "disappeared" human beings can never benefit
from psychological "closure" unless and until there is an accounting for
the fates, if not the remains, of the Victims.  In part that is
precisely why the Accused's enforced disappearances of about 100 human
beings constitutes ongoing criminal activity that continues as of today
and will continue until the fates of all their Victims have been
officially determined by you opening an investigation into my Complaint.

Let us mutually suppose that during the so-called "dirty war" in
Argentina the International Criminal Court had been in existence.  I
submit that as an Argentinean human rights lawyer you would have moved
heaven and earth and done everything in your power to get the I.C.C. and
its Prosecutor to assume jurisdiction over the Argentine Junta in order
to terminate and prosecute their enforced disappearances and torture of
your fellow Argentinean citizens.  I would have done the same.
Unfortunately, the I.C.C. did not exist during those darkest of days for
the Argentine Republic when we could have so acted.  But today as the
I.C.C. Prosecutor, you have both the opportunity and the legal power to
do something to rectify this mass and total human rights annihilation,
and to resolve and to terminate and to prosecute the "widespread" and
"systematic" policy and practice of enforced disappearances and
consequent torture of about 100 human beings by the Accused.  

Unfortunately, the new Obama administration in the United States has
made it perfectly clear by means of public statements by President Obama
and his Attorney General Eric Holder that they are not going to open any
criminal investigation of any of the Accused for these aforementioned
Crimes against Humanity.  Hence an I.C.C. "case" against the Accused is
"admissible" under Rome Statute article 1(complementarity) and article
17.  As of right now you and the I.C.C. Judges are the only people in
the entire world who can bring some degree of Justice, Closure, and
Healing into this dire, tragic, and deplorable situation for the lives
and well-being of about one hundred "disappeared" and tortured human
beings as well as for their loved-ones and next-of-kin, who are also
Victims of the Accused's Crimes against Humanity. On behalf of them all,
as a fellow human rights lawyer I implore you to open an investigation
into my Complaint and to issue a public statement to that effect.  

 Also, most regretfully, the new Obama administration has publicly
stated that it will continue the Accused's policy and practice of
"extraordinary rendition," which is really their euphemism for enforced
disappearances of human beings and consequent torture by other States.
Hence the Highest Level Officials of the Obama administration fully
intend to commit their own Crimes against Humanity under the I.C.C. Rome
Statute - unless you stop them!  Your opening an investigation of my
Complaint will undoubtedly deter the Obama administration from engaging
in any more "extraordinary renditions" -- enforced disappearances of
human beings and having them tortured by other States. Indeed your
opening of an investigation into my Complaint might encourage the Obama
administration to terminate its criminal "extraordinary rendition"
program immediately and thoroughly by means of issuing a public
statement to that effect.  In other words, your opening an investigation
of my Complaint could very well save the lives of a large number of
additional human beings who otherwise will be subjected by the Obama
administration to the Rome Statute Crimes against Humanity of enforced
disappearances of persons and their consequent torture by other States,
inter alia.

The lives and well-being of countless human beings are now at risk,
hanging in the balance, waiting for you to act promptly, effectively,
and immediately to save them from becoming Victims of Rome Statute
Crimes against Humanity perpetrated by the Highest Level Officials of
the  Obama administration as successors-in-law to the Accused by opening
an investigation of my Complaint.  Otherwise, I shall be forced to file
with you and the I.C.C. a follow-up Complaint against the Highest Level
Officials of the Obama administration.  I certainly hope it will not
come to that.  Please make it so.

Finally, for reasons more fully explained in the Conclusion to my
Complaint, I respectfully request that you obtain I.C.C. arrest warrants
for the Accused in accordance with Rome Statute articles 58(1)(a),
article 58(1)(b)(i), article 58(1)(b)(ii), and article 58(1)(b)(iii).
The sooner, the better for all humankind.

I respectfully request that you schedule a meeting with me at our
earliest mutual 

convenience in order to discuss this Complaint.  I look forward to
hearing from you at your earliest convenience.

This transmission letter is an integral part of my Complaint against the
Accused and is hereby incorporated by reference into the attached
Complaint dated as of today as well.  

Please accept, Sir, the assurance of my highest consideration.

Francis A. Boyle

Professor of International Law

________________________________

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