<html>
<body>
<font size=3>
<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/quigley02072011.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/quigley02072011.html<br>
</a></font><font size=2 color="#990000">February 7, 2011<br><br>
</font><h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b>Bush Ducks
Geneva Criminal Torture Charges<br><br>
<br>
</i></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000">
Swiss Miss
Bush</b></font></h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>By BILL
QUIGLEY<br><br>
</font><font size=3>Justice for George W’s torture violations jumped much
closer this weekend. Ex-President George W Bush was supposed to fly
to Switzerland to speak in Geneva February 15. But his speech was
cancelled over the weekend because of concerns about protests and efforts
by human rights organizations asking Swiss prosecutors to charge Bush
with torture and serve him with an arrest warrant. <br><br>
Two things made this possible. Switzerland allows the prosecution of
human rights violators from other countries if the violator is on Swiss
soil and George W admitted he authorized water boarding detainees in his
recent memoir. Torture is internationally banned by the Convention
Against Torture. <br><br>
The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, the
International Federation for Human Rights, and the US-based Center for
Constitutional Rights prepared criminal complaints with more than 2500
pages of supporting material to submit to the Swiss prosecutor.
These criminal complaints were signed by more than 60 human rights
organizations world wide and by the former UN Special Rapporteur on
Torture, the former UN Special Rapporteur on Independence of Judges and
Lawyers, and Nobel Peace Prize recipients Shirin Ebadi and Perez
Esquivel. <br><br>
Amnesty International, which has repeatedly called for criminal
investigation of torture by GWB, sent Swiss prosecutors a detailed legal
and factual analysis of President Bush’s criminal responsibility for
torture. <br><br>
While some traditionalists in the human rights community scoff at the
notion that GWB and others will ever be held accountable for their
violations, experts disagree. <br><br>
"Nobody – from those who administered the practices to those at the
top of the chain of command – is under a shield of absolute immunity for
the practices of secret detention, extraordinary rendition and
torture," Martin Scheinin, UN special rapporteur on human rights and
professor of public international law at the European University
Institute told The Guardian. "Legally this case is quite
clear. Bush does not enjoy immunity as a former head of state, and he has
command responsibility for the decisions that were taken."<br><br>
Similar efforts to prosecute former President Bush, former Bush lawyers
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Federal Appeals Court Judge Jay Bybee,
John Yoo, William J. Haynes II, David Addington, and Douglas J Feith are
proceeding in Spain.<br><br>
All of these international efforts to seek justice for the human rights
violations committed by the Bush administration are possible only because
the US has refused to prosecute – another disappointment by the Obama
administration. <br><br>
Ironically, February 7 is the ninth anniversary of the date when GWB
unilaterally decided that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to enemy
combatants. GWB denied, as most facing criminal charges do, that
the possibility of prosecution was involved at all in the decision to
cancel his trip. <br><br>
The human rights community promised to pursue Bush and the other human
rights violators whenever they leave the US. Katherine Gallagher
and Claire Tixiere, the lead lawyers authoring the 2500 page criminal
case in Geneva stated: “The reach of the Convention Against Torture
is wide – this case is prepared and will be waiting for him wherever he
travels next. Torturers – even if they are former presidents of the
United States – must be held to account and prosecuted. Impunity for Bush
must end.”<br><br>
<b>Bill Quigley</b> is Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional
Rights and law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. For more
on the Bush Torture Indictment see
<a href="http://ccrjustice.org/ourcases/current-cases/bush-torture-indictment">
http://ccrjustice.org/ourcases/current-cases/bush-torture-indictment
</a>You can reach Bill at
<a href="mailto:quigley77@gmail.com">quigley77@gmail.com</a> <br><br>
<br><br>
</font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=3 color="#FF0000">Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#008000">415 863-9977<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#0000FF">
<a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.Freedomarchives.org</a></font><font size=3> </font></body>
</html>