For Crimes against Humanity,
Prof Boyle requests International Arrest Warrants
for Rendition & Torture

Recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world
- Preamble, Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Illinois University professor Francis A. Boyle 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” i.e. enforced disappearance and consequent torture perpetrated upon about 100 human beings. This criminal policy and practice by the Accused constitute Crimes against Humanity in violation of the Rome Statute establishing the I.C.C.

While United States is not a party to the Rome Statute the Accused ordered and were 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 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).
Prof .Francis A Boyle of the University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign, U.S.A. who teaches law at the university is a scholar of international law and human rights. He received a J.D. degree magna cum laude and A.M. and Ph.D. degrees in political science from Harvard University, where he was a teaching fellow and an associate at its Center for International Affairs. He also practiced tax and international tax Laws with Bingham, Dana & Gould in Boston. He has written and lectured extensively in the United States and abroad on the relationship between international law and politics. Professor Boyle served as counsel to Bosnia and Herzegovina and to the Provisional Government of the State of Palestine. He has advised numerous international bodies in the areas of human rights, war crimes and genocide, nuclear policy, and bio-warfare.

Prof .Francis A Boyle, was a member of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal**

Copy of Complaint of 19 January, 2010 from Prof Boyle to Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, International Criminal Court. The Hague, the Netherlands, below.*

Rumsfeld, misled the US Congress and President George Bush also "had to be aware" of the atrocities - US Gen Antonio Taguba to Seymour Hersh
 
In an interview in 2007 with Seymour Hersh in New Yorker, Major General Antonio Taguba who led the first military investigation in 2004 into human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq has bluntly questioned the integrity of former US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, suggesting he misled the US Congress by downplaying his own prior knowledge of what had happened. Gen Taguba also claimed in the interview that President George Bush also "had to be aware" of the atrocities despite saying at the time of the scandal that he had been out of the loop until he saw images in the US media.

The Long Arm of Justice and Time and Criminals

US has tried all tricks including threats and money that countries joining ICC grant exemption to US citizens. Washington had coerced Belgium to change its law of universal jurisdiction under which Donald Rumsfeld could have been tried. Many Israeli officials arriving in London and on being warned of arrests for war crimes did not disembark and returned home. George Bush et al are now private citizens and let us see what happens when the declining US hegemony collapses. At best they will dare not leave USA.

Augusto Pinochet's Arrest and Trial

General Augusto Pinochet was indicted on 10 October 1998 by Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzón. He was arrested in London and finally released by the British government in March 2000. Authorized to freely return to his native Chile, he was there first indicted by the judge Juan Guzmán Tapia, and charged of a number of crimes, before dying on 10 December 2006, without having been convicted in any case. His arrest in London made the front-page of newspapers worldwide as not only did it involve the head of the military dictatorship that ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, but it was the first time that several European judges applied the principle of universal jurisdiction, declaring themselves competent to judge crimes committed by former head of states, despite local amnesty laws.

War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity And Genocide In Iraq

Earlier on 7 October, 2009 a Legal Case against 4 U.S. Presidents and 4 UK Prime Ministers was filed by The Brussels Tribunal at the Audiencia Nacional in Madrid ahead of the change of law by the Spanish Senate, acting to confirm a decision already taken under pressure from powerful governments accused of grave crimes, which will limit Spain’s laws of universal jurisdiction for commissioning, condoning and/or perpetuating multiple war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Iraq.

This case, naming George H W Bush, William J Clinton, George W Bush, Barack H Obama, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Anthony Blair and Gordon Brown, is brought by Iraqis and others who stand in solidarity with the Iraqi people and in defence of their rights and international law.

Iraq: 19 Years of Intended Destruction

The intended destruction — or genocide — of Iraq as a state and nation has been ongoing for 19 years, combining the imposition of the most draconian sanctions regime ever designed and that led to 1.5 million Iraqi deaths, including 500,000 children, with a war of aggression that led to the violent deaths of over one million more.

Destruction of Iraq included the purposeful targeting of its water and sanitation system, attacking the health of the civilian population. Since 1990, thousands of tons of depleted uranium have been dropped on Iraq, leading in some places to a 600 per cent rise in cancer and leukemia cases, especially among children. In both the first Gulf War and “Shock and Awe” in 2003, an air campaign that openly threatened “total destruction”, waves of disproportionate bombing made no distinction between military and civilian targets, with schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, shelters, residential areas, and historical sites all destroyed.

Since 2003, some 4.7 million Iraqis — one fifth of the population — have been forcibly displaced. Under occupation, kidnappings, killings, extortion and mutilation became endemic, targeting men, women and even children and the elderly.

In parallel, Iraq’s rich heritage and unique cultural and archaeological patrimony has been wantonly destroyed. Read:
Destruction of World's Eastern Heritage in Iraq. Every Iraqi victim deserves justice. Everyone responsible should be accountable.

Kuala Lumpur Declaration to Criminalize War and War Crimes Tribunal

Following the launching of the Kuala Lumpur Declaration to Criminalize War in 2004, a War Crimes Commission was appointed to investigate allegations of brutality and to gather evidence. A War Crimes Court was also set up. The Commission took two and a half years to trace and interview victims, gather evidence and research the law.
On 31 October, 2009 the Commission submitted its case to the seven member judge Tribunal.  Prof Francis A Boyle, was a member of the Tribunal. Other members of the Tribunal are:

• Dato Abdur Kadir Sulaiman is a retired Malaysian Federal Court Judge. He is the President of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal,
• Tunku Sofia Jewa ,was called to the English Bar at the Lincoln’s Inn. She then obtained LLM and PhD from the US University of Miami. She has taught international law at universities in Malaysia and now heads a legal firm.
• Prof alleh Buang, a Bar-at Law from Lincoln’s Inn, England, is visiting professor at Universiti Teknology, Malaysia. He served as a Federal council at the Attorney General’s Chambers and taught law and practiced corporate law. He has written over 25 books on Law.
• Prof. Niloufer Bhagvat, a graduate of Mumbai Law college, did her LLM from the Mumbai University in Constitutional Law, Administrative Law and International Law. She taught law at the university and has appeared as senior advocate at the Supreme Court in New Delhi and Mumbai High Courts and also before Commissions of Enquiries including the Justice Srikrishna Commission. She is the vice president of Indian Lawyers Association and writes on legal and international affairs regularly. She was a judge at the International Tribunal on Afghanistan at Tokyo in 2003.
• Alfred Lambremont Webre, J.D., M.Ed., a graduate of Yale University and Yale Law School is a renowned author, lawyer, futurist, peace activist, environmental activist. A space activist he promotes the ban of space weapons. He was a co-architect of the Space Preservation Treaty and the Space Preservation Act and is the International Director of the Institute for Cooperation in Space. He helped draft the Citizen Hearing in 2000 with Stephen Bassett and serves as a member on the Board of Advisors.
• Dr Shad Saleem Faruqi is Emeritus Professor at UiTM and Visiting Professor at USM. After graduating from the Wesleyan University in the United States, Dr Faruqi completed his LLB (First Class) and LLM (First Class) from Aligarh Muslim University, India and his PhD from International Islamic University Malaysia

War Crimes Commission presents Testimonies of the victims to the Tribunal

An International Conference to Criminalize War by the Perdana Global Peace Organization (PGPO) and Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalize War (KLFCW) with the aim of stopping slaughter of innocents and prevent profiteers from earning blood money was held along with an Exhibition at Putra World Trade Center in Kuala Lumpur from October 28 to 31, 2009. The conference was opened by former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who has been the driving force behind the conference, the exhibition and holding the Commission and the Tribunal. Renowned world and Malaysian experts and personalities participated in the events.

On the first two days of event, the conference heard views of both Malaysian and foreign Speakers on the wars and related matters.

‘Flouting of International Law and the Failure of International Organizations,’

In the 28 October morning session, British MP George Holloway, Ms Cynthia Mckinney and the author spoke on the subject. The War Crimes Commission and Tribunal heard testimonies from victims of torture following the illegal US led invasion of Iraq and earlier of Afghanistan. The exhibition featured the carnage of war and torture committed by the US led forces and personnel in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo and elsewhere. The KL War Crimes Commission heard harrowing testimonies about the atrocities committed against the Guantanamo Bay detainees, which included psychological torture and routine humiliation.

A total of seven detainees including Sudanese journalist Sami Al’Hajj, and British nationals Moazzam Begg and Rahul Ahmed about the atrocities that took place in the camps including how they were shackled, stripped naked in front of female soldiers, thrown naked into makeshift cells made with barbed wires, injected with substances and subjected to mental torture to the point they hallucinated.

Begg also spoke of the psychological torture inflicted on him while he was imprisoned. A psychiatrist assigned to him had asked him if he had ever considered committing suicide and even suggested how he could kill himself by tying his prison clothes to make a rope that could be used as a noose.

“Of the six deaths that I knew of during detention, five were carried out in this way,” Begg said, adding that the detainees were also drugged.

Begg also revealed that he was interrogated more than 300 times including once when insinuations were made that his wife was in danger while the screams of a woman could be heard next door. He also said he was forced to sign a confession that he was member of the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda under threat of torture and because he though it would give him access to legal recourse.

Summing up his testimony, Begg revealed to the commission that 92% of people held in Guantanamo Bay were not involved with the Taliban or Al-Qaeda, saying he believed many were detained and handed to the Americans to get the hefty bounty paid for each detainee.

He also had some harsh words for the role played by the British government in the affair.

Begg is now director of Cage Prisoners – a human rights organization that works to raise awareness of the plight of the prisoners held as part of the War on Terror

Another victim R Ahmed, in 2002, when 18-year-old and two friends crossed the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to obtain drugs and alcohol which they were told was easily available in the American-occupied Afghanistan. They were promptly arrested and Ahmed spent the next two and the half years of his life in Guantanamo Bay.

Iraqi-born Jameela Abbas Hameedi said that rape and abuse of women and children by US troops were almost a daily affair over at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. Jameelah, 54, was arrested in the Iraqi capital in January 2004 with her entire family, allegedly for supporting and funding forces against the US invasion.

"The US army even beat me with tubes and a plastic chair until it broke. A plastic shard entered my leg and caused a bad infection. I had to undergo surgery but without any anesthetic given," said Jameelah who was also stripped to her underwear in the "black room" of the prison and bashed against a wall.

Her only daughter and nephew were beaten and tortured naked for six months until Jameelah admitted that she supported the resistance. She also witnessed other abuses like sleep deprivation, forced stress positions, forced nudity, the use of dogs to scare and bite prisoners, death threats and sexual abuse.

Jameelah and her family were freed in July 2004 without any charges brought against them.

These are only some of the examples of illegal rendition and torture perpetrated by US and UK.

Commissioners at the hearing were former Bar Council president Zainur Zakaria, former UN assistant secretary general for humanitarian operations in Iraq Prof Hans-Christof von Sponeck, former assistant secretary general for human resource management and head of UN humanitarian programme in Iraq Dennis J.Halliday, lawyer and former magistrate Musa Ismail, professor of law Gurdial Nijar, Perdana Foundation’s Dr Zulaiha Ismail and Prof Dr Mohd Akram Shair Mohamed of the Islamic University.

The testimonies before the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission Hearings were submitted to the Tribunal on 31 October, 2009.

For some details on illegal ‘rendition’ and torture see below ;

US Franchised Torture Refuses To Go Away
Gen Taguba Unveils Abu Ghraib, US Gulag - "The abused are only Iraqis!"  

*Copy of Complaint dated 19 January, 2010 from Prof Boyle to Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, International Criminal Court, The Hague, the Netherlands is reproduced below.*

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

K Gajendra Singh, Indian ambassador (retired), served as ambassador to Turkey and Azerbaijan from August 1992 to April 1996. Prior to that, he served terms as ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies.
Copy right with the author E-mail kgsingh@yahoo.com