War Crimes

The International Criminal Court has issued a plea to the United Nations Security Council to assist in the arrest of two Sudanese officials for crimes in Darfur.  Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the ICC prosecutor, was before the Security Council in New York yesterday advising the international community that they, in coordination with regional organizations, “must take the lead” in detaining Ahmad Huran and Ali Kushayb for war crimes.  The Security Council had requested the assistance of the ICC in 2005 in the investigation of atrocities committed in Sudan.  Security Council members, including U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, are expected in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, on June 17 to discuss issues with top government officials there.

The ICC charged Huran and Kushayb in May with 51 counts of war crime and crimes against humanity.  The ICC warrants allege that Huran armed and funded janjaweed militias and provoked them “to attack and commit massive crimes against the civilian population.”  According to eyewitness accounts, Kushayb supplied arms to the janjaweed and was seen to be “involved in the execution of prisoners [and] in the rape of women.”  Kushayb is allegedly in Sudanese custody, while Huran is the current humanitarian affairs minister.

An estimated 200,000 people have been killed in Darfur at the hands of the janjaweed militias.  In 2003, non-Arab farmers staged an uprising protest perceived government neglect.  The government supported a swift counter-insurgency campaign which sparked civil conflict between rebels and government backed militias.  Over 2 million people have been displaced due to the ongoing conflict.

Manuel Aranda Da Silva, the top UN humanitarian chief, has indicated that all parties have expressed interest in reexamining a year old peace agreement.  The negotiations have been largely stalled due to ongoing civil conflict, which is hampering much needed humanitarian aid.   French officials are at the G8 summit this week petitioning for an aid corridor to the Darfur region.  France already has several thousand troops in place amending the African Union forces there.

Despite negotiations, the ICC stated that atrocities are ongoing in Sudan.  According to a press release issued by the ICC, Sudan has continued with “indiscriminate and disproportionate” air strikes on villages, ongoing rape in refugee camps, and attacks against international peacekeepers and aid workers.  According to Ocampo; “From the information gathered, it appears that the parties to the conflict continue to violate international humanitarian law.”  

U.S. President, George W. Bush, stated that he was “frustrated because there are still people suffering and the UN process is moving at a snail’s pace.”

BBC/Reuters/AP

A report compiled by six human rights groups identifies “ghost detainees” allegedly held in secret CIA prisons. The report, titled Off the Record, identifies 39 people, including children as young as 7, who have been subjected to “enforced disappearances” at the hands of the United States. CIA spokesmen have dismissed the report, stating that the CIA acts in “strict accordance with American law” and emphasized that “The United States does not conduct or condone torture.” The U.S. President, George Bush, has said that all secret detention facilities were vacated last September, however, the CIA has transferred “ghost detainees” to the U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as recently as April 2007.

The report provides a brief historical account of the 39 people alleged to be held in secret detention. The report is assembled from information provided by former prisoners, as well as officials from the U.S., Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Yemen. The reports states that these individuals were captured and flown under “extraordinary renditions” to secret prison facilities. In May, a U.S. civil liberties group filed a lawsuit against a subsidiary of the aerospace giant, Boeing, for its contract with the CIA, alleging the group was used to shuttle detainees to the secret facilities across Europe.

The European Parliament issued a report highlighting more than 1,000 covert flights associated with “extraordinary renditions” had been conducted by the U.S. since the 9/11 attacks.

The human rights report details accounts of the detention of family members of alleged al Qa’ida operatives as well. The report states that two of Khaleed Sheik Mohammed’s (KSM) sons, 6 and 8, were detained and interrogated by U.S. officials. International law states that family members be made aware of others detention. KSM, the architect of the 9/11 attacks, has testified he did know his sons had been detained. U.S. officials have also stated they treated the two “with kids gloves”, understanding that “they are only little children.”

International law outlines the rights of prisoners of war, or other classification of detainees. Detainees are afforded the right to a judicial investigation “as rapidly as circumstances permit and so that his trial shall take place as soon as possible.” The language, however, does afford certain flexibilities, stating that prisoners may be detained without judicial proceedings if it is in the national interest of the detaining power to do so. The U.S. could make the argument that certain renditions fall within that classification regarding high profile detainees, such as KSM.

26 American intelligence officers are being tried in absentia in Italy for the kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric. The cleric claims he was tortured and remained handcuffed “for 14 months.”

Spokesmen for Amnesty International, one of the reports authors, have acknowledged the need to protect citizens from terrorist acts and the rights of nations to guard their national interest, yet it argues that “seizing men, women and even children, and placing people in secret locations deprived of the most basic safeguards for any detainees” remains questionable practice.

BBC UPDATE: CIA jails in E Europe ‘confirmed’

A Council of Europe investigator says he has evidence to prove the CIA ran secret jails in Poland and Romania to interrogate “war on terror” suspects. Dick Marty, a Swiss senator, has been investigating CIA operations on behalf of the European human rights body.

In his new report, released on Friday, Mr Marty says secret CIA prisons “did exist in Europe from 2003 to 2005, in particular in Poland and Romania”.

The governments of both countries have strongly denied any involvement.

AP/Reuters/BBC

References to international law derive from the “Reference to the Geneva Conventions” under the “Important Links” tab on the right.

Ratko Mladic, the top UN war crimes fugitive, may be arrested “within a few weeks.”  Chief prosecutor at the UN war crimes tribunal at the Hague, Carla del Ponte, stated that she saw “concrete signs” of the detention and extradition of Mladic.  Ms. del Ponte said she had hoped to see Mladic face prosecution before she stepped down from her position in September.  Boris Tadic, Serbia’s president, confirmed that Serbian leaders were determined to arrest General Mladic.

Mladic was the architect of the massacre at Srebrenica in July 1995.  A paramilitary force, known as the Scorpions unit, summarily executed some 8,000 Bosnian men in the UN ‘safe zone’ of Srebrenica.  The forces, led by General Mladic, “stripped all the male Muslim prisoners, military and civilian, elderly and young, of their personal belongings and identification, and deliberately and methodically killed them solely on the basis of their identity.”, according to a press release from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).  The Srebrenica massacre is the worst such incident committed in Europe since the slaughter of millions of Jews in World War II.

The detention of Mladic is integral to the negotiation of Stabilization and Association Agreement (SSA), the agreement to establish a contractual relationship between Serbia and Montenegro and the European Union.  EU officials have stated they will not sign the agreement until Mladic is in custody.  A top associate of Mladic, Zdravko Tolimir, was brought to the Hague last week after he was captured near the border with Bosnia.  Bosnian nationalists, who view Tolimir as a hero, claim Tolimir was dumped over the border and that his arrest was illegal.

Increased political pressure by EU officials has been the only way to coerce a national reconciliation regarding the atrocities committed in the region. 

AP/Financial Times/Reuters

US military judges at the naval detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, threw out war crimes charges against two high profile detainees yesterday. The cases of Salim Hamdan, bin Laden’s driver and bodyguard, and Omar Khadr, a Canadian captured in Afghanistan, were dismissed on jurisdictional grounds. The rulings did not affect the detention of the two individuals, or the 360 suspects being detained at the US naval base. The tribunal system was established last year by Congress after the previous system was ruled unconstitutional in Hamdan’s appeal to the Supreme Court.

Hamdan is accused of providing material support to bin Laden and al-Qa’ida. He is also alleged to have received weapons training and transported “one or more SA-7 surface-to-air missiles” to be used against American forces in Afghanistan. Khadr is also charged with conspiracy, as well as murder of a US soldier during combat operations in Afghanistan. Khadr was 15 when he was captured. He would have been the first internationally recognized child soldier to be tried for war crimes.

Hamdan’s Supreme Court appeal (Hamdan v. Rumsfeld) had mandated Congress to enact legislation that established the current military commission to try detainees for war crimes. According to the legislation – The Military Commissions Act – only those designated as “unlawful enemy combatants” could face war crimes charges before the Guantanamo tribunals. The status of detainees is determined during a combatant status review tribunal, or CSRT’s. None of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, including Hamdan and Khadr, were designated “unlawful enemy combatants” by the CSRTs, only “enemy combatants.” The judges in Khadr and Hamdan dismissed all charges because the suspects were not designated “unlawful enemy combatants” and the court therefore lacked jurisdiction to try them.

US Senator Arlen Specter, senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee, suggested the rulings on Monday may cause Congress to re-examine its decisions regarding detainee status and the tribunal system. Part of the legislation passed by Congress revoked the right to file habeas corpus to contest their detentions. Human rights groups have also weighed in on the rulings. Human Rights Watch issued a statement saying that the decisions “show that Washington’s effort to create a parallel justice system in Guantanamo has failed.” Amnesty International stated; “At this point, detainees have been more successful committing suicide in Guantanamo than the government has been successful in getting detainees to trial.” The White House has not issued a response to the dismissals.

In related news, one man is in custody in New York City and two others are before courts in Trinidad on allegations that they were planning to bomb fuel depots at John F. Kennedy airport in New York. One other suspect remains at large. It is unclear at this why the suspects were not immediately transferred to the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay on charges of conspiracy to commit terrorist acts against the United States.

AP/Reuters/Bloomberg

The former Liberian President, Charles Taylor, boycotted the opening of his war crimes trial before the International Criminal Court at The Hague today, arguing he could not receive a fair trial due to lack of legal counsel.  Taylors court appointed attorney, Karim Khan, walked out of the proceedings claiming Taylor had wanted to act as his own defense attorney.  Taylor was indicted on 11 counts of war crimes in 2003 by a UN backed court in Sierra Leone.  His case was transferred to the ICC out of fears of uprisings in the region in response to his prosecution.

Mr. Taylor allegedly cooperated with commanders from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) to gain access to the diamond trade and establish a supporting government in the Liberian capital, Freetown.  He is alleged to have recruited child soldiers, known as the Small Boys Unit, to unseat the regime of former President Samuel K. Doe.  Taylor’s National Patriotic Front is alleged to drug children with heroin and other drugs to influence them in to become combatants in the militant groups.   Thousands were murdered, maimed, and raped at the hands of militants.  Civilians were often captured and mutilated by amputating hands and limbs with axes and women were ritualistically raped and forced to become sex slaves.

Mr. Taylor is the first African leader to face war crimes.  The former prosecutor at the Special Court for Sierra Leone stated; “It’s a time in history of Africa that the leaders … go on notice that they just cannot destroy their own people for whatever purpose.”  Taylor had initially refused to cooperate with the court, claiming it had no jurisdiction over Liberia, despite international recognition of regional appeals for intervention.   He has pleaded not guilty to all 11 counts.

The trial is expected to last between a year to 18 months.

AP/BBC/Reuters

Cambodian and international officials convened in a hotel conference room to negotiate the ground rules for the special courts to try members of the Khmer Rouge regime for crimes against humanity.  The Khmer Rouge Tribunal is a mixed regime, with Cambodia holding jurisdiction under international assistance.  The proceedings have been under negotiation since a bill was introduced in Cambodian legislation in 1999 to enact the mixed system.

The Khmer Rouge was an extremist Communist power that was the ruling party, under Pol Pot, in Cambodia from 1975-1979.  The Khmer Rouge sought to establish a “New People” through isolation from outside influence.  They tried to exploit communist ideals to create a classless society by way of an agrarian utopia through isolation, hard labor, and extermination.  Following a Vietnamese ouster, the Khmer Rouge leaders were accused of the torture, starvation, and mass slaughter of over 1.7 million Cambodians, or nearly a quarter of the country’s population.  Many of the key former leaders of the Khmer Rouge, including Pol Pot, have died and many are in their late 70’s.  Only one, however, Kang Kek Ieu (“Duch”), chief executioner for the Khmer Rouge, is in custody.

The status of the court hangs in jeopardy.  The mixed nature of the tribunal has been the major issue of contention.  International monitors insist that international standards of justice be observed in all manners of the system, while Cambodian officials argue that their jurisdiction should hold precedent over the proceedings.   The Cambodian officials are accused of attempting to limit the scope of the investigations due to Khmer Rouge sympathetic views.  International officials have threatened to quit the tribunal if negotiations break down further.

AP/BBC

Egypt today resumed trials of 40 senior members of The Muslim Brotherhood (MB).  The Muslim Brotherhood holds nearly 20 percent of the seats in Egypt’s parliament, despite its members being banned from running for office.  Members of the MB are being tried for money laundering and terrorism.  It is one of the most influential jihadi militant groups in the world.

Defense lawyers and human rights representatives were largely banned from the proceedings.  Defense lawyers boycotted the opening trial dates, arguing they were not informed of the start date.  The Cairo branch of Human Rights Watch stated that “The governments refusal to allow human rights groups and the media into the trial undermined their assurances that civilians can get a fair trial before military courts.”  Civilian courts have in the past repeatedly released members of the MB from custody.

The MB is seen as President Hosni Mubarak’s most significant challenge.  Mubarak has held the presidency since 1981.  The electoral process in Egypt bans members of militant groups from running as a political party and MB members run as independent candidates.  The trials may be seen as an attempt to crackdown against the MB by Mubarak’s regime in the face of mounting opposition from the group.

AP/BBC

Salim Hamdan, bin Ladens personal bodyguard and driver, and Omar Khadr will face a US war crimes tribunal at the naval detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba today. Hamdan’s case has surfaced in the Supreme Court in the past. The Court in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld ruled that the military commission invoked by President Bush was unconstitutional, spurring Congress to invoke legislation to establish the current tribunal system there. As part of this legislation, Congress revoked the rights normally protected by the US Constitution for suspected militants in US custody .

Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen, is being charged with the murder of a US soldier. He was captured at a suspected al Qa’ida training camp in Afghanistan. He was 15 at the time. Khadr, now 20, would be classified as a child soldier under international conventions. The internationally recognized age of legal conscription is 18 years old. Khadr’s legal counsel is urging that age appropriate measures be considered in his case. The US has stated it will not seek a life sentence or the death penalty due to Khadr’s age at the time of his alleged crimes. The US prosecution of Khadr mark the first time a child soldier will face charges at a war crimes tribunal - a precedent not even practiced by the special tribunals for the Sierra Leone. International conventions typically recognize child soldiers as victims, not perpetrators, of war crimes.

AP UPDATE: GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba: In a stunning reversal for the Bush administration’s attempts to try Guantanamo detainees in military court, a military judge on Monday dismissed terrorism-related charges against a prisoner charged with killing an American soldier in Afghanistan.

Reuters/AP

Zdravko Tolimir, a former intelligence officer and senior aide to Ratko Mladic, was arrested in Bosnia yesterday.  Tolimer was considered the third most wanted war crimes fugitive after Mladic and Radovan Karadzic.  He was arrested near the border with Serbia after a major sweep of the area by anti-terrorist units of both the Bosnia and Serbian police forces.  He is considered one of the architects of the Srebrenica massacre, in which 8000 Bosnian men were systematically executed in a UN safe area.

The detention of Tolimir is considered part of the wider reconciliation campaign aimed at Serbia gaining admission into the European Union.  Talks between Serbia and the EU have been suspended in part due to Serbia’s failure to fully cooperate with bringing the remaining war crimes suspects to justice.  The Serbian Humanitarian Law Centre has suggested the arrest was due to outside pressure, but noted it was a step towards the capture of other fugitives.  Tolimir was suspected of aiding Mladic in evading arrest. 

Tolimer was charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague with genocide and alleges his “intent to destroy” the Muslim population in Bosnia through “opportunistic summary executions” and “large scale systematic murder.”  The international community considers the atrocities committed in the former Yugoslavia as genocide.    

Five of the original 161 people indicted for war crimes by the ICTY remain at large.  It is only a matter of time before the remaining fugitives, including Mladic and Karadzic, are brought to justice. 

BBC News/AP/Reuters