Former President George Bush and seven from his administration were found guilty of war crimes in a symbolic Kuala Lumpur tribunal of conscience. Included in the guilty convictions are former Vice President Dick Cheney; Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ;members of the Bush/Cheney administration legal counselors Alberto Gonzales, David Addington; Defense Dept counsel William Haynes II and Justice Dept. lawyers Jay Bybee and John Yoo.
Victims
of torture told a panel of five judges in Kuala Lumpur of their suffering at the hands of US soldiers and contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Among the evidence, Briton Moazzam Begg, an ex-Guantanamo detainee, said he was beaten, put in a hood and left in solitary confinement. Iraqi woman Jameelah Abbas Hameedi said she was stripped and humiliated in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.
The Kuala Lumpur
War Crimes Commission Commission is a symbolic non-governmental entity established in 2007 by former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohmad.
Tribunal president judge Tan Sri Lamin Mohd Yunus said the eight accused were also individually and jointly liable for crimes of torture in accordance with Article 6 of the Nuremberg Charter.
"The US is subject to customary international law and to the principles of the Nuremberg Charter and exceptional circumstances such as war, instability and public emergency cannot excuse torture."
The Kuala Lumpur Tribunal findings will be publicized and submitted to the International Criminal Court, United Nations and the Security Council. Tribunal members hope nations will be reluctant to invite “war criminals” from the Bush years to their countries. Maybe expecting a vigorous effort to deal with Bush/Cheney administration’s possible war crimes here in the US was always a
quaint concept. But for now justice has swerved, at least symbolically to Malaysia.
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