[Reader-list] Bush & Associates Found Guilty of Torture

[A. Mani]

_________________________________

BREAKING: HISTORIC JUDGMENT. Bush & Associates Found Guilty of Torture


	
Global Research, May 12, 2012
Mathaba


A solid case for the prosecution of Bush, Blair, Rumsfeld, Cheney,
their legal counsel and others, for war crimes, crimes against the
peace, torture, and crimes against humanity has been established at
the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal with a guilty verdict on day 5 of
the third major session of the Tribunal.

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. Global Research
Director Michel Chossudovsky is a member of the KL War Crimes
Commission and was present throughout the Tribunal hearings.

KUALA LUMPUR, 11 May 2012 (mathaba)

The five-panel tribunal unanimously delivered a guilty verdict against
former United States President George W. Bush and his associates at
the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal hearing that had started on
Monday, May 7th.

On the charge of Crime of Torture and War Crimes, the tribunal finds
the accused persons former U.S. President George W. Bush and his
associates namely Richard Cheney, former U.S. Vice President, Donald
Rumsfeld, former Defence Secretary, Alberto Gonzales, then Counsel to
President Bush, David Addington, then General Counsel to the
Vice-President, William Haynes II, then General Counsel to Secretary
of Defence, Jay Bybee, then Assistant Attorney General, and John Choon
Yoo, former Deputy Assistant Attorney-General guilty as charged and
convicted as war criminals for Torture and Cruel, Inhumane and
Degrading Treatment of the Complainant War Crime Victims.

Earlier in the week, the tribunal heard the testimonies of three
witnesses namely Abbas Abid, Moazzam Begg and Jameelah Hameedi. They
related the horrific tortures they had faced during their
incarceration. The tribunal also heard two other Statutory
Declarations of Iraqi citizen Ali Shalal and Rhuhel Ahmed, a British
citizen.

Testimony showed that Abbas Abid, a 48-year-old chief engineer in the
Science and Technology Ministry had his fingernails removed by pliers.
Ali Shalal was attached with bare electrical wires and electrocuted
and hung from the wall. Moazzam Begg was beaten and put in solitary
confinement. Jameelah was almost nude and humiliated, used as a human
shield whilst being transported by helicopter. All these witnesses
have residual injuries till today.

These witnesses were taken prisoners and held in prisons in
Afghanistan (Bagram), in Iraq (Abu Gharib, Baghdad International
Airport) and two of them namely Moazzam Begg and Rhuhel Ahmed were
transported to Guantanamo Bay.

In a submission that lasted a day, the prosecution showed in an in
depth submission 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 shows
a sustained perpetration of brutal, barbaric, cruel and dehumanizing
course of conduct against them. These acts of crimes were applied
cumulatively to inflict the worst possible pain and suffering.

After hearing the defence of the Amicus Curiae and the subsequent
rebuttal the prosecution, the tribunal ruled unanimously that there
was a prima facie case made out by the prosecution.

After hours of deliberation, the tribunal, in the verdict that was
read out by 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:

(a) Torture; (b) Creating, authorizing and implementing a regime of
Cruel, Inhumane, and Degrading Treatment; (c) Violating Customary
International Law; (d) Violating the Convention Against Torture 1984;
(e) Violating the Geneva Convention III and IV 1949; (f) Violating the
Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention of 1949. (g) Violating the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Charter.

The Tribunal finds that the prosecution has established beyond a
reasonable doubt that the Accused persons are individually and jointly
liable for all crimes committed in pursuit of their common plan and
purpose under principles established by Article 6 of the Charter of
the International Military Tribunal (the Nuremberg Charter), which
states, inter alia, “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 plan.”

The Principles of the Nuremberg Charter and the Nuremberg Decision
have been adopted as customary international law by the United
Nations. The government of the United States is subject to customary
international law and to the Principles of the Nuremburg Charter and
the Nuremburg Decision.

The Tribunal finds that the prosecution has proven beyond reasonable
doubt that the accused lawyers, gave ‘advice’ that “the Geneva
Conventions did not apply (to suspected al Qaeda and Taliban
detainees); that there was no torture occurring within the meaning of
the Torture Convention, and that enhanced interrogations techniques,
(constituting cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment,) were
permissible.”

The prosecution has also established beyond a reasonable doubt that
the accused lawyers “knew full well their advice was being sought to
be acted upon, and in fact was acted upon, and such advice paved the
way for violations of international law, the Geneva Conventions and
the Torture Convention.”

The accused lawyers’ advice was binding on the accused Bush, Rumsfeld
and Cheney, each of whom relied on the accused lawyers’ advice.
Others, such as CIA Director George Tenet and Diane Beaver, officer in
charge at Guantanamo, relied on the accused lawyers’ advice. The
prosecution had established beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused
lawyers are criminally liable for their acts, and for participating in
a joint criminal enterprise.

The president read that the Tribunal orders that reparations
commensurate with the irreparable harm and injury, pain and suffering
undergone by the Complainant War Crime Victims be paid to the
Complainant War Crime Victims. While it is constantly mindful of its
stature as merely a tribunal of conscience with no real power of
enforcement, the Tribunal finds that the witnesses in this case are
entitled ex justitia to the payment of reparations by the 8 convicted
persons and their government.

It is the Tribunal’s hope that armed with the findings of this
Tribunal, the witnesses will, in the near future, find a state or an
international judicial entity able and willing to exercise
jurisdiction and to enforce the verdict of this Tribunal against the 8
convicted persons and their government. The Tribunal’s award of
reparations shall be submitted to the War Crimes Commission to
facilitate the determination and collection of reparations by the
Complainant War Crime Victims.

President Lamin read, “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 publicized
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.


____________________________________________

Best


A. Mani





-- 
A. Mani
CU, ASL, CLC,  AMS, CMS
http://www.logicamani.co.cc