Kuala Lumpur — It’s official; George W Bush is
a war criminal.
In what is the first ever conviction of its kind
anywhere in the world, the former US President
and seven key members of his administration
were yesterday (Fri) found guilty of war crimes.
Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their
legal advisers Alberto Gonzales, David
Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John
Yoo were tried in absentia in Malaysia.
The trial held in Kuala Lumpur heard harrowing
witness accounts from victims of torture who
suffered at the hands of US soldiers and
contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.
They included testimony from British man
Moazzam Begg, an ex-Guantanamo detainee and
Iraqi woman Jameelah Abbas Hameedi who was
tortured in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.
At the end of the week-long hearing, the five-
panel tribunal unanimously delivered guilty
verdicts against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and
their key legal advisors who were all convicted
as war criminals for torture and cruel,
inhumane and degrading treatment.
Full transcripts of the charges, witness
statements and other relevant material will now
be sent to the Chief Prosecutor of the
International Criminal Court, as well as the
United Nations and the Security Council.
The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission is
also asking that the names of Bush, Cheney,
Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Yoo, Bybee, Addington and
Haynes be entered and included in the
Commission’s Register of War Criminals for
public record.
The tribunal is the initiative of Malaysia’s
retired Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who
staunchly opposed the American-led invasion of
Iraq in 2003.
He sat through the entire hearing as it took
personal statements and testimonies of three
witnesses namely Abbas Abid, Moazzam Begg
and Jameelah Hameedi. The tribunal also heard
two other Statutory Declarations of Iraqi citizen
Ali Shalal and Rahul Ahmed, another British
citizen.
After the guilty verdict reached by five senior
judges was delivered, Mahathir Mohamad said:
“Powerful countries are getting away with
murder.”
War crimes expert and lawyer Francis Boyle,
professor of international law at the University
of Illinois College of Law in America, was part
of the prosecution team.
After the case he said: “This is the first
conviction of these people anywhere in the
world.”
While the hearing is regarded by some as being
purely symbolic, human rights activist Boyle
said he was hopeful that Bush and Co could soon
find themselves facing similar trials elsewhere
in the world.
“We tried three times to get Bush in Canada but
were thwarted by the Canadian Government,
then we scared Bush out of going to Switzerland.
The Spanish attempt failed because of the
government there and the same happened in
Germany.”
Boyle then referenced the Nuremberg Charter
which was used as the format for the tribunal
when asked about the credibility of the initiative
in Malaysia. He quoted: “Leaders, organizers,
instigators and accomplices participating in the
formulation or execution of a common plan or
conspiracy to commit war crimes are
responsible for all acts performed by any
person in execution of such a plan.”
The US is subject to customary international law
and to the Principles of the Nuremberg Charter
said Boyle who also believes the week-long trial
was “almost certainly” being monitored closely
by both Pentagon and White House officials.
Professor Gurdial Singh Nijar, who headed the
prosecution said: “The tribunal was very careful
to adhere scrupulously to the regulations drawn
up by the Nuremberg courts and the
International Criminal Courts”.
He added that he was optimistic the tribunal
would be followed up elsewhere in the world
where “countries have a duty to try war
criminals” and he cited the case of the former
Chilean dictator Augustine Pinochet who was
arrested in Britain to be extradited to Spain on
charges of war crimes.
“Pinochet was only eight years out of his
presidency when that happened.”
The Pinochet case was the first time that several
European judges applied the principle of
universal jurisdiction, declaring themselves
competent to judge crimes committed by former
heads of state, despite local amnesty laws.
Throughout the week the tribunal was packed
with legal experts and law students as witnesses
gave testimony and then cross examination by
the defence led by lawyer Jason Kay Kit Leon.
The court heard how
Abbas Abid, a 48-year-old engineer from
Fallujah in Iraq had his fingernails removed
by pliers.
Ali Shalal was attached with bare electrical
wires and electrocuted and hung from a
wall.
Moazzam Begg was beaten, hooded and put
in solitary confinement.
Jameelah was stripped and humiliated, and
was used as a human shield whilst being
transported by helicopter.
The witnesses also detailed how they have
residual injuries till today.
Moazzam Begg, now working as a director for
the London-based human rights group
Cageprisoners said he was delighted with the
verdict, but added: “When people talk about
Nuremberg you have to remember those tried
were all prosecuted after the war.
“Right now Guantanamo is still open, people are
still being held there and are still being tortured
there.”
In response to questions about the difference
between the Bush and Obama Administrations,
he added: “If President Bush was the President
of extra-judicial torture then US President
Barak Obama is the President of extra judicial
killing through drone strikes. Our work has only
just begun.”
The prosecution case rested on proving how the
decision-makers at the highest level President
Bush, Vice-President Cheney, Secretary of
Defence Rumsfeld, aided and abetted by the
lawyers and the other commanders and CIA
officials – all acted in concert. Torture was
systematically applied and became an accepted
norm.
According to the prosecution, the testimony of
all the witnesses exposed a sustained
perpetration of brutal, barbaric, cruel and
dehumanising course of conduct against them.
These acts of crimes were applied cumulatively
to inflict the worst possible pain and suffering,
said lawyers.
The president of the tribunal Tan Sri Dato Lamin
bin Haji Mohd Yunus Lamin, found that the
prosecution had established beyond a
“reasonable doubt that the accused persons,
former President George Bush and his co-
conspirators engaged in a web of instructions,
memos, directives, legal advice and action that
established a common plan and purpose, joint
enterprise and/or conspiracy to commit the
crimes of Torture and War Crimes, including
and not limited to a common plan and purpose
to commit the following crimes in relation to the
“War on Terror” and the wars launched by the
U.S. and others in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
President Lamin told a packed courtroom: “As a
tribunal of conscience, the Tribunal is fully
aware that its verdict is merely declaratory in
nature. The tribunal has no power of
enforcement, no power to impose any custodial
sentence on any one or more of the 8 convicted
persons. What we can do, under Article 31 of
Chapter VI of Part 2 of the Charter is to
recommend to the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes
Commission to submit this finding of conviction
by the Tribunal, together with a record of these
proceedings, to the Chief Prosecutor of the
International Criminal Court, as well as the
United Nations and the Security Council.
“The Tribunal also recommends to the Kuala
Lumpur War Crimes Commission that the names
of all the 8 convicted persons be entered and
included in the Commission’s Register of War
Criminals and be publicised accordingly.
“The Tribunal recommends to the War Crimes
Commission to give the widest international
publicity to this conviction and grant of
reparations, as these are universal crimes for
which there is a responsibility upon nations to
institute prosecutions if any of these Accused
persons may enter their jurisdictions
www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2012/05/12/bush-convicted-of-war-crimes-in-absentia/

They are dreaming.
Bush is a symbol of the American pride. Touch him and you will bring hell on yourself.