War Crimes

In what can only be seen as a move by Pentagon lawyers to get ahead of the issue before the Supreme Court weighs in this summer, the war crimes tribunal  at Guantanamo Bay gave permission to the former driver for Osama bin Laden to communicate with his fellow inmates asking them to describe the nature of his employment for the al-Qaida leader. Counsel for Salim Hamdan argue that just because their client drove a terrorist around Afghanistan doesn’t make him a terrorist, though now that the U.S. considers conspiracy to commit a terrorist act just as grievous as actually pulling one off, that test probably won’t stand up for too long.  Regardless, his lawyers asked the tribunal to allow Hamdan to communicate with other “high-value” al-Qaida operatives at the detention facility to describe the role, if any, he played in the organization.

The Supreme Court decides a package of cases, Al Odah v. Bush and Boumediene v. Bush, this summer to determine, among other things, what rights “unlawful” combatants have in U.S. courts.

Former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz  faced the Iraqi High Tribunal Tuesday on war crimes charges for the execution of 42 business men who protested rising food prices in the wake of U.N. sanctions on the former regime. Aziz, widely recognized by his coke-bottle glasses and bombastic English, surrendered to U.S. forces shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Though Aziz was one of the longest serving allies in the former regime, he largely kept out of day-to-day decisions, and, as the only Christian in the administration, left all the major decisions to his colleagues. He has been in U.S. custody since 2003 without charge and several observers say his trial is a way to vet the prosecution of former administration officials as the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki faces rising credibility issues.

Sunday marked the two year anniversary since the International Criminal Court issued its first arrest warrants against Sudanese officials suspected of war crimes in Darfur.  To mark the occasion, Facebook (yes, Facebook) launched “Wanted for War Crimes Watch List” application to its users.  The point of the project is to generate public awareness along the lines of “America’s Most Wanted” hoping users will come forward to drive suspects from their hideouts and pressure governments to meet their international obligations.  While services such as Facebook are linked to various harassment suits and its subject to revenge seekers relishing in the anonymity of the Web, this is a good thing.  Though, on the sidebar there, there is a link to a group called

Iran’s Press TV reports “Chemical Ali” suffered a heart attack and was presumably returned to U.S. custody? Or am I reading into this.  Says he was returned to a U.S. detention facility, but reading between the lines would lead you to believe he was NOT in a U.S. detention facility when he had the heart attack.  It’s been expected his execution would happen soon and it seems Iraq and U.S. officials have been pretty tight lipped on this one.  And I welcome any and all conspiracy theories as heart attacks tend to be a favorite of the CIA.

Heart attack strikes ‘Chemical Ali’
Wed, 23 Apr 2008 02:54:10

Saddam Hussein’s cousin, who is on death row, has been returned to a US detention facility after suffering a heart attack, officials say.

Ali Hassan al-Majid, better known as ‘Chemical Ali’ for his role in using of poison gas to kill Kurdish villagers in the 1980s, was admitted to a US medical facility on Sunday.

Al-Majid, who has been sentenced to death after ouster of Saddam’s regime on the charges of genocide, went on a hunger strike to protest his prison conditions.

His lawyer, Badee Izzat Aref, said al-Majid had suffered a heart attack as a result of his hunger strike.

A source from the US military confirmed that al-Majid had suffered a heart attack but said he was in stable condition and had been returned to a US detention facility on Tuesday.

Al-Majid’s execution has been delayed for months.

From EU Business.com. Seems the EU is on the hunt for information relating to the elusive Radovan Karadzic. Maybe he’s having lunch with Osama bin Laden somewhere.

 

22 April 2008, 11:17 CET

 

 

(SARAJEVO) - NATO-backed forces of the European Union said they conducted a raid Tuesday on the home of a Bosnian Serb businessman suspected of helping war crimes fugitives to evade justice.

“EUFOR conducted a search operation in the premises of Goran Marinkovic in Paprikovac district” near Banja Luka, said a statement issued by the EU peacekeeping force in Bosnia (EUFOR).

“We believe Marinkovic uses his extensive business links to fund the fugitives. We are looking for evidence of communication between Marinkovic and family and support networks” of the fugitives, it added.

The operation, requested by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), was aimed at finding material or information which could help to locate fugitives and put pressure on their supporters.

Marinkovic, who owns two large trading companies, is believed to be one of the key backers of the Serb Democratic Party (SDS) founded by Bosnian Serb genocide suspect Radovan Karadzic.

Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic have been on the run from the United Nations tribunal based in The Hague for more than 12 years since being charged with war crimes committed during Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war.

The pair also face a genocide charge related to the 1995 massacre of around 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica, the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II.

Karadzic is thought to be hiding in Bosnia’s Serb-run half or in neighbouring Montenegro, while Mladic is believed to be in Serbia.

News summary

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Jacques Verges, the lawyer for notorious assassin Carlos the Jackal, arrived in Cambodia to defend Khieu Samphan, the former head of state of the Cambodia Khmer Rouge at the war crimes tribunal there. Khieu was a prominent communist thinker prior to entering the political scene to force a eugenic campaign in Cambodia following the coup that brought the Khmer Rouge to power in the wake of the Vietnam War. His doctoral thesis, “Cambodia’s Economy and Industrial Development” preached a national autonomy that blamed wealthy industrial states for poverty in the Third World. He was arrested in 2007 following his release from hospital after suffering a stroke.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — A French lawyer who defended terrorists and a former Nazi officer arrived in Cambodia on Monday to represent a former Khmer Rouge leader.

Jacques Verges declined to comment and only said “go to the court” before being whisked away in a car after his arrival at Phnom Penh International Airport.

Verges will join a Cambodian attorney to argue former Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan’s appeal against his pretrial detention.

The U.N.-assisted tribunal has held Khieu Samphan since Nov. 19 on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity stemming from atrocities committed under Khmer Rouge rule in 1975-79.

The communist group’s radical policies led to the deaths of some 1.7 million people from starvation, disease, overwork and execution.

Khieu Samphan is one of five former leaders of the group held for their alleged roles in the atrocities. He has repeatedly denied any involvement.

Verges has won international notoriety for his past efforts in defending criminals such as Venezuelan terrorist Carlos the Jackal and Nazi Gestapo officer Klaus Barbie.

Khieu Samphan has said he has known Verges since he attended university in France in the 1950s, when both were active in student movements against French colonialism.

Khieu Samphan’s defense team also includes Say Bory, a Cambodian lawyer who used to serve on the constitutional council, the country’s highest legal body.

Say Bory said the defense is challenging both the tribunal’s grounds for detaining Khieu Samphan and its arguments implicating him in the Khmer Rouge’s atrocities.

Prosecutors for the U.S. government amended the charges against Khalid Sheik Mohommed and five other suspects linked to the Sept. 11 attacks. Senior Pentagon officials announced the amended charges “clarified” the activities of the Guantanamo Bay detainees, including KSM, in planning the attacks.

They U.S. says KSM and his co-conspirators, including Ramzi bin Alshid “did, at various locations, from in or about 1996 to in or about May 2003, conspire and agree with Osama bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahiri, Mohammed Atef, 19 individuals who hijacked four commercial airliners on September 11, 2001.”

The new charges include a detailed list of all 2,973 people killed during the Sept. 11 attacks.

KSM and his associates did “willfully join an enterprise of persons with the intent to further the unlawful purpose of the enterprise; to commit the following offenses triable by military commission: attacking civilians, attacking civilian objects, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, murder in violation of the law of war, destruction of property in violation of the law of war, and terrorism, said agreement and enterprise sharing a common criminal purpose, known to the six accused, to attack the United States, its people, and their property, said conspiracy resulting in the deaths of 2,973 persons.”

Though not typically included as a war crime, the conspiracy charges are included in the list of crimes punishable by death. The U.S. is seeking the death penalty for all six defendants.

The move comes as the U.S. Supreme Court considers a package of cases this summer, Al-Odah v. Bush and Boumediene v. Bush, which “will affect virtually all legal matters related to the detainees.” The case weighs the rights of detainees to seek legal review in the civilian court system.

Refiled charges (in a 92 page PDF) are here

The incoming chief war crimes prosecutor for the United Nations, Serge Brammertz, said Thursday Serbia could do a lot better with its cooperation with the Hague, specifically in bringing war crimes suspects before the court.

“I particularly insisted on the search for and arrest of the … remaining fugitives,” he said. “It is crucial that they be brought to justice as soon as possible.”

His comments come amid his first trip to Serbia since taking over the post from his predecessor, Carla del Ponte.

Brammertz said Serbia needed to hand over Serbian leader Radovan Karadzic and his top military commander Ratko Mladic, making the astonishing statement (note the sarcasm) “progress is still needed in all of these areas.”

Del Ponte took a notably harsher tone, banging her first on the podium of the Serbian parliament, demanding, “I want my fugitives.”

Del Ponte pledged in June that Karadzic and Mladic were within reach.

Many states in the European Union want to sign off on Serbia’s petition to the EU as soon as possible, the Netherlands threatened to block the move unless Serbia handed Mladic over to the international court.

Carla Del Ponte, the former chief prosecutor at the war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, says in her new book that ethnic Serbs were taken from their homes and swifted to Albania to harvest and sell their organs.  Among the allegations are testimony from the book’s co-author, Chuck Sudetic, that evidence found in one home shows blood splattered walls throughout, except in one area about the size and shape of a hospital gurney.  Del Ponte says in her book she could not bring the charges to prosecution because she lacked prosecutorial authority.  And this from the same prominent prosecutor who said in July 2007 the most wanted war crimes suspects in modern history would be handed over in a matter of weeks.

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Horrors alleged in Kosovo

By MARC CHAMPION
April 14, 2008; Page A13

BRUSSELS — Incendiary allegations in a new book by a prominent European prosecutor are further stoking anti-Western tensions in Serbia ahead of pivotal elections.

Carla Del Ponte, who until January was chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, writes in a book released in Italian earlier this month that she found evidence that ethnic Serbs were kidnapped from Kosovo and taken to Albania to harvest and sell their organs. (more…)

The U.S. war crimes tribunal holding court at the naval detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, appointed a U.S. military lawyer to serve as the legal representative to the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon.   The military ordered Navy Capt. Prescott Prince to serve as the lawyer for Khalid Sheik Mohammed following February charges of murder and conspiring to commit terrorist acts against the United States and its interests.

Defense Department officials must first approve the charges and the possible death penalty before the case can proceed, but Prince already mounted protests against the fairness of the trial.  Of note is the issue of “waterboarding” and the detention of KSM at CIA “black sites.”  The rules outlining court procedures in Guantanamo prohibit the use of evidence gained through torture, following the rules of international treaties, but it leaves the ultimate decision to the trial judge.

“You start with the fact that you’ve broken the rules — a secret prison, torturing. Waterboarding. Harsh extreme techniques. Using cruel, coercive techniques to extract information,” said Prince. “I just don’t see how you can give him a fair trial.”

Meanwhile, Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed Haza al-Darbi, the brother in-law of Khalid al-Mihdar who helped hijack American Airlines Flight 77 and crash it into the Pentagon, walked out of his pretrial proceedings at the Guantanamo court, calling the whole system a “scam.”

“I believe there is no international court or local court in the United States that treats detainees or accused people the same way we are treated here,” Darbi said through a translator.

Following bickering between his lawyers and translators, his attorney advised him his presence at the hearing was voluntary, after which he got up and left under escort.

Darbi faces charges of conspiracy to commit and providing material support for terrorist acts against the United States and its interests.  He allegedly trained and taught at al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan in the late 1990s and provided material for a plot in 2002 to attack ships off the Strait of Hormuz.