War Crimes

Reuters reports today that as chief plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 defendants, it is not clear whether inculpatory statements made by the defendants will be admissible into evidence at their trials or which statements prosecutors will seek to introduce. Since many defendants will likely allege such statements were only made as a result of physical coercion, they provide a very shaky foundation for major prosecutions. (In Sheikh Mohammed’s case, however, finding public inculpatory statements should not be difficult).

As Daniel noted a few weeks ago, one of the six defendants the prosecution had initially sought to try jointly, Mohammed al-Qhatani, has already been separated for trial purposes and some commentators conjecture it had to do with particular flaws in the evidence against him. In Al-Qhatani’s case, the presiding judge refused the charges against the man who is accused of plotting to serve as the 20th 9/11 hijacker without prejudice, so the government may refile the charges at any time.

Arraignments are scheduled for Thursday, June 5, but it is very unlikely that either the prosecution’s strategy or the standards the judges will apply in determining which inculpatory statements to admit into evidence will be clarified at that time.

Thursday, May 29, 2008 - 12:55 PM

Manchester, Britain (SANA) The environmental campaigner and journalist George Monbiot last night tried and failed to make a citizen’s arrest of the former Bush administration official John Bolton over war crimes committed during the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

As Bolton ended an hour-long discussion at the Hay Festival in Wales, Monbiot, who had earlier challenged him for breaches of the postwar Nuremberg Principles, defining war crimes, moved towards the stage waving a charge sheet.

Security staff, however, intervened and bundled Monbiot out of the tent as 20 supporters chanted “war criminal” and waved placards.

Monbiot, The Guardian columnist, challenged Bolton during the debate to say why - in planning, preparing and waging war against Iraq- he was any different from Nazi war criminals condemned at Nuremberg.

Afterwards, Monbiot, a contributor to the Guardian, said: “I’m disappointed I couldn’t reach him, but I made what I believe to be the first attempt ever to arrest one of the perpetrators of the Iraq war, and I would like to see that followed up.

Monbiot has been pushing his authority to make the arrest, saying that Section 24A of Britain’s Serious Organized Crime and Police Act 2005 gives individuals the authority to arrest without a warrant “anyone whom he has reasonable grounds for suspecting to be guilty” of an offense.”

Bolton resigned as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations at the end of 2006. he is considered as an influential advocate of hard-line foreign and defense policies closely associated with the neoconservative political faction. He was tagged to serve in the George W. Bush administration in 2001.

The three remaining Presidential candidates in the two major parties - Senators Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain - issued a highly unusual joint declaration today on Darfur. In a statement coordinated by the activist group Save Darfur, the candidates said they “stand united” on Darfur, repeatedly condemned the Sudanese government’s failure to take steps towards peace, and affirmed that the next U.S. President will pursue peace and human security in the region with “unstinting resolve.” According to the Pittsburgh Darfur Emergency Coalition and political scientist Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia, it is the first joint statement on foreign policy by Presidential candidates since World War Two.

Most of the year, this blog is dedicated to covering violations of the laws of war - but it’s appropriate for us, as Americans, to take a moment today and thank our countrymen in the Armed Forces who serve us with honor and courage. We are, now and ever, deeply in their debt.

Happy Memorial Day.

Serbian media reports that the Serbian government is investigating accusations by former ICTY Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte that Serbian Kosovars were kidnapped and murdered and had their organs harvested by Kosovar Albanian paramilitaries during the 1998-99 war. The tribunal itself has refused to reinvestigate the allegations, averring that a 2004 investigation had not turned up any reliable evidence.

The allegations, and ICTY’s refusal to investigate, which roughly coincided with the surprise acquittal of former Kosovar Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj (which the Prosecutor’s office is appealing), have sparked a firestorm of controversy in Serbia. The controversy threatens to further complicate the delicate politics of the region, and further undermine the Tribunal in Serbia.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center has located an alleged war criminal from World War 2, in Australia. 87-year-old Karoly Zentai is accused of murdering a Jewish teenager in Budapest during the Holocaust while he served in the pro-Nazi Hungarian army. Hungary has been seeking his extradition since 2005, and Zentai has avoided extradition before. Now, the Australian Supreme Court has upheld the country’s extradition processes and it appears he will go before a magistrate for an extradition hearing this August. Zentai had been one of the targets of the Wiesenthal Center’s Operation Last Chance, which seeks to bring surviving Nazi war criminals to justice before the opportunity to do so is gone.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — A military judge on Friday postponed the first war crimes tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, saying he wants to wait until the Supreme Court makes its highly anticipated ruling on the right of detainees to challenge their confinement in civil courts.Navy Capt. Keith Allred ruled the trial for Osama bin Laden’s former driver should be delayed seven weeks, until July 21, in case the Supreme Court ruling affects his case. He scheduled pretrial hearings to begin a week earlier.

A Supreme Court ruling is expected by June 30.

Defense lawyers for Salim Ahmed Hamdan, whose trial was scheduled to start June 2, had requested a postponement. Military prosecutors had said they were eager to go to trial.

The military judge’s ruling is the latest in a series of delays for the government as it tries to prosecute Hamdan, a Yemeni, for acting as bin Laden’s personal driver in Afghanistan, helping him to evade U.S. retribution following the Sept. 11 attacks.

An arraignment for the confessed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four other alleged plotters is scheduled for June 5 at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.

A Pentagon spokesman said Friday there are no plans to postpone the arraignment because of the Hamdan case ruling.

Allred said in his ruling that the postponement gives the prosecutors and defense “the benefit of a decision that may well change the tenor or conduct of the trial.”

A delay, he said, also avoids the “potential embarrassment, waste of resources and prejudice to the accused,” if the Supreme Court ruling forces a halt to the proceedings mid-trial.

“The accused has been in confinement for six years, and another month’s wait will not prejudice any party to the case,” Allred wrote.

Defense lawyer Andrea Prasow said the delay was welcome.

“We specifically sought the continuance and are very pleased that the judge agrees that all parties will benefit from the Supreme Court’s guidance regarding the applicability of the Constitution to detainees held at Guantanamo,” she said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

In a separate ruling, the judge ordered a psychiatric evaluation for Hamdan to determine if he is competent to stand trial. A psychiatrist hired by his lawyers found he suffers from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder and cannot participate in his defense. The military says he has no signs of any mental problems.

Hamdan is charged with supporting terrorism and faces life in prison if convicted. His attorneys do not dispute that he was a driver for the al-Qaida leader, but insist he was just a low-level employee who had no role in planning or carrying out attacks against the U.S.

The U.S. holds about 270 prisoners at Guantanamo and has said it plans to bring about 80 before the tribunals — the first to be held by the United States since the World War II era. One detainee has been convicted: David Hicks, who under a plea deal served a nine-month prison sentence in his native Australia.

The Supreme Court is considering a challenge to a provision of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that denies Guantanamo detainees the right to file petition of habeas corpus.

Habeas corpus is a centuries-old legal principle, enshrined in the Constitution, that allows courts to determine whether a prisoner is being held illegally.

The government says foreigners held outside the United States have no constitutional rights and that Congress has stripped federal courts of jurisdiction in the detainee cases.

The pending case before the court is the third time the Supreme Court has examined the rights of the detainees.

Twice before, the court has ruled against the administration. Each time Congress and the White House have changed the law in an effort to keep the Guantanamo prisoners from contesting their detention before American judges.

The chief judge for the U.S. war crimes tribunal at the naval detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, set a June 5 court date for the self-professed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, and four other suspected co-conspirators. 

Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, who presided over the earlier trial of Australian David Hicks, notified the military defense attorneys by e-mail Wednesday evening he would personally handle the case. The June 5 date precedes a high-profile case before the U.S. Supreme Court that would have a major impact on the tribunal proceedings. The court is set to review Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. U.S, weigh a challenge to Gates v. Bismullah all while the Pentagon plans to vet Bismullah through another Combatant Status Review Tribunal to determine his eligibility to face the war crimes tribunal.

The Supreme Court packages consider the expansion of the rights of civilian courts to review military legal proceeds from the Guantanamo Bay cases. It is peculiar that the U.S. government announced the date of the KSM trial following a scheduling decision from the Supreme Court.

KSM and the other five co-conspirators have so far not been afforded legal counsel versed in death penalty cases, a penalty the U.S. government seeks for conspiracy to commit terrorist acts.  Lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union slated to defend the high-profile suspects slammed the Pentagon for “brazenly disregarding the rights of the accused without any consideration for due process.'’

“This approach will only add to the illegitimacy of the military commissions, which … make a mockery of our Constitution and American values,” lawyer said.

Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon spoke on Darfur today, arguing that the joint UN/African Union peacekeeping mission is seriously hampered by a variety of logistical problems.

In Sudan, rebels reached Omdurman, a suburb of Khartoum, this weekend. AP reports 200 people died in the attack. Sudan blames Chad, and has cut diplomatic ties.

The rebel movement may have been retaliating for the recent airstrikesby the Sudanese government, which rebels claim targeted civilian gathering places in North Darfur.

Judge Susan Crawford, the prosecutorial authority for the U.S. military tribunal at the naval detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Tuesday refused charges filed by prosecutors against Mohammed al-Qahtani, an alleged Sept. 11 conspirator.

Crawford accepted charges filed against five other high-profile suspects, including alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammad and Ramzi bin al-Shieb.  The U.S. military is seeking the death penalty in all cases.

Crawford’s reasoning for dismissing the charges against Qahtani is not public information.  He remains in custody as an “enemy combatant” and the U.S. military has the authority to refile the charges.

Immigration authorities detained Qahtani, a Saudi national, at the airport in Orlanda, Fla. U.S. authorities believe he was intended to be one of the Sept. 11 hijackers along with Zacarias Moussaoui.