May 12, 2012
Foreign Policy Journal
George W. Bush Convicted of War Crimes in Absentiaby 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
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".
