National Lawyers Guild (NLG) Calls For Special Prosecutor to Investigate Bush Administration Officials and Lawyers Who Wrote Torture Memos
http://www.commondreams.org/news2008/0512-10.htm
Showing posts with label torture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label torture. Show all posts
Monday, May 12, 2008
NLG ISSUES WHITE PAPER ON TORTURE LIABILITY
NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD CALLS FOR SPECIAL PROSECUTOR TO INVESTIGATE BUSH ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS AND LAWYERS WHO WROTE TORTURE MEMOS
ISSUES WHITE PAPER ON TORTURE LIABILITY
Contacts:
Marjorie Cohn, NLG President, marjorie@tjsl.edu; 858-204-3565
Jeanne Mirer, NLG International Committee, mirerfam@earthlink.net; 313-515-2046
New York. The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) calls on Congress to appoint a Special Prosecutor, independent of the Department of Justice, to investigate and prosecute high Bush officials and lawyers including John Yoo for their role in the torture of prisoners in U.S. custody.
The NLG has issued a White Paper explaining why the memos, which purported to give objective legal advice, subject all those involved to prosecution under international and U.S. domestic law. This includes people who ordered the torture, approved it or gave advice to justify it.
Guild President Marjorie Cohn testified on May 6 before the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties of the House Judiciary Committee, that some lawyers in the Department of Justice were "part of a common plan to violate U.S. and international laws outlawing torture."
The 14-page White Paper details the ways in which the lawyers, including Yoo, Jay Bybee, David Addington, and William Haynes, counseled the White House on how to get away with war crimes. The lawyers said that the Department of Justice would not enforce federal laws against torture, maiming, assault and stalking. "Just because the statute says," John Yoo explained in a recent Esquire interview, "that doesn't mean you have to do it."
Professor Cohn told the congressmen it was "reasonably foreseeable" the lawyers' advice "would result in great physical and mental harm or death to many detainees"; more than 100 have died, many from torture. Torture, like genocide, slavery and wars of aggression, is absolutely prohibited at all times. No country can ever pass a law that would allow them.
Professor Philippe Sands, a British international litigator and author of the new book, "Torture Team," also testified at the congressional hearing. He said that after his extensive interviews with many Bush officials, including John Yoo, "it became clear to me that the Administration has spun a narrative that is false, claiming that the impetus for the new interrogation techniques came from the bottom-up. That is not true; the abuse was a result of pressure and actions driven from the highest levels of government."
It was recently revealed that Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, George Tenet, and John Ashcroft met in the White House and personally oversaw and approved the torture by authorizing specific torture techniques including waterboarding. President Bush admitted he knew and approved of their actions.
"They are all liable under the War Crimes Act and the Torture Statute," Professor Cohn testified. "Under the doctrine of command responsibility, commanders, all the way up the chain of command to the commander-in-chief, are liable for war crimes if they knew or should have known their subordinates would commit them, and they did nothing to stop or prevent it. The Bush officials ordered the torture after seeking legal cover from their lawyers."
The National Lawyers Guild calls on Congress to appoint a Special Prosecutor, independent of the Department of Justice, to investigate and prosecute the high officials of the Bush administration and the lawyers who advised them, for their roles in misusing the rule of law and legal analysis to justify torture and other crimes.
The White Paper can be read at www.nlg.org/news/statements/White Paper - Yoo hearing.doc
# # #
ISSUES WHITE PAPER ON TORTURE LIABILITY
Contacts:
Marjorie Cohn, NLG President, marjorie@tjsl.edu; 858-204-3565
Jeanne Mirer, NLG International Committee, mirerfam@earthlink.net; 313-515-2046
New York. The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) calls on Congress to appoint a Special Prosecutor, independent of the Department of Justice, to investigate and prosecute high Bush officials and lawyers including John Yoo for their role in the torture of prisoners in U.S. custody.
The NLG has issued a White Paper explaining why the memos, which purported to give objective legal advice, subject all those involved to prosecution under international and U.S. domestic law. This includes people who ordered the torture, approved it or gave advice to justify it.
Guild President Marjorie Cohn testified on May 6 before the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties of the House Judiciary Committee, that some lawyers in the Department of Justice were "part of a common plan to violate U.S. and international laws outlawing torture."
The 14-page White Paper details the ways in which the lawyers, including Yoo, Jay Bybee, David Addington, and William Haynes, counseled the White House on how to get away with war crimes. The lawyers said that the Department of Justice would not enforce federal laws against torture, maiming, assault and stalking. "Just because the statute says," John Yoo explained in a recent Esquire interview, "that doesn't mean you have to do it."
Professor Cohn told the congressmen it was "reasonably foreseeable" the lawyers' advice "would result in great physical and mental harm or death to many detainees"; more than 100 have died, many from torture. Torture, like genocide, slavery and wars of aggression, is absolutely prohibited at all times. No country can ever pass a law that would allow them.
Professor Philippe Sands, a British international litigator and author of the new book, "Torture Team," also testified at the congressional hearing. He said that after his extensive interviews with many Bush officials, including John Yoo, "it became clear to me that the Administration has spun a narrative that is false, claiming that the impetus for the new interrogation techniques came from the bottom-up. That is not true; the abuse was a result of pressure and actions driven from the highest levels of government."
It was recently revealed that Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, George Tenet, and John Ashcroft met in the White House and personally oversaw and approved the torture by authorizing specific torture techniques including waterboarding. President Bush admitted he knew and approved of their actions.
"They are all liable under the War Crimes Act and the Torture Statute," Professor Cohn testified. "Under the doctrine of command responsibility, commanders, all the way up the chain of command to the commander-in-chief, are liable for war crimes if they knew or should have known their subordinates would commit them, and they did nothing to stop or prevent it. The Bush officials ordered the torture after seeking legal cover from their lawyers."
The National Lawyers Guild calls on Congress to appoint a Special Prosecutor, independent of the Department of Justice, to investigate and prosecute the high officials of the Bush administration and the lawyers who advised them, for their roles in misusing the rule of law and legal analysis to justify torture and other crimes.
The White Paper can be read at www.nlg.org/news/statements/White Paper - Yoo hearing.doc
# # #
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Saturday, November 11, 2006
BACKGROUND BRIEF ON THE CASE AGAINST RUMSFELD, GONZALES AND OTHERS FILED IN GERMANY ON NOVEMBER 14, 2006
BACKGROUND BRIEF ON
THE CASE AGAINST RUMSFELD, GONZALES AND OTHERS
FILED IN GERMANY ON NOVEMBER 14, 2006
The November 14, 2006, criminal complaint is a request for the German Federal Prosecutor to open an investigation and, ultimately, a criminal prosecution that will look into the responsibility of high-ranking U.S. officials for authorizing war crimes in the context of the so-called “War on Terror.” The complaint is brought on behalf of 12 torture victims – 11 Iraqi citizens who were held at Abu Ghraib prison and one Guantánamo detainee – and is being filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the Republican Attorneys' Association (RAV) and others, all represented by Berlin Attorney Wolfgang Kaleck. The complaint is related to a 2004 complaint that was dismissed, but the new complaint is filed with much new evidence, new defendants and plaintiffs, a new German Federal Prosecutor and, most important, under new circumstances that include the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense and the passage of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 in the U.S. granting officials retroactive immunity from prosecution for war crimes.
Executive Summary of the Complaint’s Allegations:
From Donald Rumsfeld on down, the political and military leaders in charge of ordering, allowing and implementing abusive interrogation techniques in the context of the “War on Terror” since September 11, 2001, must be investigated and held accountable. The complaint alleges that American military and civilian high-ranking officials named as defendants in the case have committed war crimes against detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and in the U.S.-controlled Guantánamo Bay prison camp.
The complaint alleges that the defendants “ordered” war crimes, “aided or abetted” war crimes, or “failed, as civilian superiors or military commanders, to prevent their commission by subordinates, or to punish their subordinates,” actions that are explicitly criminalized by German law. The U.S. administration has treated hundreds if not thousands of detainees in a coercive manner, in accordance with “harsh interrogation techniques” ordered by Secretary Rumsfeld himself that legally constitute torture and/or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, in blatant violation of the provisions of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, the 1984 Convention Against Torture and the 1977 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights – to all of which the United States is a party. Under international humanitarian treaty and customary law, and as re-stated in German law, these acts of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment constitute war crimes.
The U.S. torture program that resulted in war crimes was aided and abetted by the government lawyers also named in this case: former Chief White House Counsel (and current Attorney General) Alberto R. Gonzales, former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, and General Counsel of the Department of Defense William James Haynes, II. While some of them claim to merely have given legal opinions, those opinions were false or clearly erroneous and given in a context where it was known and foreseeable to these lawyers that torture would be the result. Not only was torture foreseeable, but this legal advice was given to facilitate and aid and abet torture as well as to attempt to immunize those who tortured. Without these opinions, the torture program could not have occurred. The infamous “Torture Memo” dated August 1, 2002, is the key document that redefined torture so narrowly that such classic and age old torture techniques as water-boarding were authorized to be employed and were employed by U.S. officials against detainees.
Why Germany?
The complaint is being filed under the Code of Crimes against International Law (CCIL), enacted by Germany in compliance with the Rome Statute creating the International Criminal Court in 2002, which Germany ratified. The CCIL provides for “universal jurisdiction” for war crimes, crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity. It enables the German Federal Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute crimes constituting a violation of the CCIL, irrespective of the location of the defendant or plaintiff, the place where the crime was carried out, or the nationality of the persons involved.
No international courts or personal tribunals in Iraq were mandated to conduct investigations and prosecutions of responsible U.S. officials. The United States has refused to join the International Criminal Court, thereby foreclosing the option of pursuing a prosecution in international courts. Iraq has no authority to prosecute. Furthermore, the U.S. gave immunity to all its personnel in Iraq from Iraqi prosecution. All this added to the United States’ unquestionable refusal to look at the responsibility of those of the very top of the chain of command and named in the present complaint, and the recent passage of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (see below) aimed at preventing war crimes prosecutions against Americans in the U.S., German courts are seen as a last resort to obtain justice for those victims of abuse and torture while detained by the United States.
The Plaintiffs in the Case:
The complaint is being filed on behalf of 11 Iraqi citizens who were victims of gruesome crimes at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison. They were severely beaten, deprived of sleep and food, sexually abused, stripped naked and hooded, and exposed to extreme temperatures.
Another plaintiff in the case is Mohammed al Qahtani, a Saudi citizen detained at Guantánamo since January 2002. At Guantánamo, Mr. al Qahtani was subjected to a regime of aggressive interrogation techniques, known as the “First Special Interrogation Plan,” that were authorized by U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and implemented under the supervision and guidance of Secretary Rumsfeld and the commander of Guantánamo, defendant Major General Geoffrey Miller. These methods included fifty days of severe sleep deprivation and 20-hour interrogations, forced nudity, sexual humiliation, religious humiliation, physical force, prolonged stress positions and prolonged sensory over-stimulation.
None of these plaintiffs – and the hundreds of other detainees subjected to similar abuses – has seen justice, and none of those who authorized these techniques at the top of the chain of command have been held liable for it, or even seriously and independently investigated.
The Defendants in the Case:
The U.S. high-ranking officials charged include:
- Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
- Former CIA Director George Tenet
- Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Dr. Stephen Cambone
- Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez
- Major General Walter Wojdakowski
- Major General Geoffrey Miller
- Colonel Thomas Pappas
- Former Chief White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales
- Former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee
- Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo
- General Counsel of the Department of Defense William James Haynes, II
- Vice President Chief Counsel David S. Addington
The 2004 Complaint:
In November 2004, the previous German Federal Prosecutor failed to prosecute an earlier complaint against many of these same defendants filed by CCR with the support of FIDH and RAV. The U.S. pressured Germany to drop the case, saying not doing so would jeopardize U.S.-German relations, and the complaint was ultimately dismissed in February 2005 on the eve of a visit by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to Munich, Germany. In dismissing the case, the Prosecutor stated: “there are no indications that the authorities and courts of the United States of America are refraining, or would refrain, from penal measures as regards the violations described in the complaint.” The passage of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 immunizing officials and others from prosecution and much new evidence shows this is not the case.
The Impact of the Military Commissions Act of 2006:
The Military Commissions Act was signed by President Bush on October 17, 2006, and it protects U.S. officials and military personnel by: 1) narrowing the grounds of criminal liability under the War Crimes Act and making those revisions retroactive to November 26, 1997; and by 2) retroactively extending a defense for criminal prosecutions related to detentions and interrogations back to September 11, 2001. These immunizing provisions essentially grant an amnesty for international crimes including war crimes and torture. The retroactivity provision directs that prosecutions of war crimes committed since 1997 will fall under the new narrowed range of standards and interpretations of war crimes, which would protect civilians from being prosecuted for committing acts that would have been considered war crimes under the old definition – thereby explicitly aiming at immunizing American officials and others from prosecution in their country.
How the 2006 Complaint Is a Stronger Case:
The grounds for the 2005 dismissal are no longer justified:
The prosecutor’s original decision to dismiss the case was solely based on the assumption that an ongoing investigation was being carried out in the U.S. regarding the Abu Ghraib scandal. We now have extensive evidence that demonstrates that this investigation was directed only towards the criminal culpability of the lowest ranking military personnel. Indeed, some of these very defendants have been or are being rewarded with higher-level appointments and medals. The investigative and prosecutorial functions in the United States are currently directly controlled by the ones involved in the conspiracy to perpetrate war crimes and named in this complaint, which politically blocks possible investigations and criminal prosecutions. Furthermore, the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 is unquestionably the clearest illustration of such unwillingness to prosecute Americans for war crimes.
New evidence:
Extraordinary new materials, documentation and testimonies that have come to light over the past two years – about what the plaintiffs went through (Mr. al Qahtani is a new plaintiff to the case), about the signed memos that led to the justification and practice of torture, and about the defendants’ personal involvement – only strengthen the case.
In addition, former U.S. Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, a defendant in the earlier complaint as the commanding officer at Abu Ghraib, is now providing testimony and will testify on behalf of the plaintiffs.
New additional defendants:
The new complaint charges the government lawyers alleged to be the legal architects of the Bush Administration’s practice of torture.
Rumsfeld can no longer claim sovereign immunity:
Rumsfeld’s resignation on November 8, 2006, means that he cannot claim either the functional or personal immunity of sovereign officials from international prosecution for war crimes. Functional immunity – related to acts performed in the exercise of a person’s official functions – does not, since the Nuremberg trials in 1945, apply to international crimes such as war crimes. As to personal immunity – covering officials’ private acts accomplished while in office – it only applies during the individual’s term of office.
Unprecedented support for the case:
When filing a complaint to the Federal Prosecutor, any group may join the complaint as a “co-plaintiff,” which demonstrates the support of these groups and their common request for the opening of an investigation. Co-plaintiffs in the present case include:
- The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)
- The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
- The Republican Attorneys' Association (RAV)
- The International Peace Bureau, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1910
- 1980 Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel
- 2002 Nobel Peace Prize winner Martín Almada
- The National Lawyers’ Guild (NLG)
- International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA)
- Lawyers against the War (LAW)
- European Democratic Lawyers
- European Democratic Jurists
- The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR)
- Veterans for Peace
THE CASE AGAINST RUMSFELD, GONZALES AND OTHERS
FILED IN GERMANY ON NOVEMBER 14, 2006
The November 14, 2006, criminal complaint is a request for the German Federal Prosecutor to open an investigation and, ultimately, a criminal prosecution that will look into the responsibility of high-ranking U.S. officials for authorizing war crimes in the context of the so-called “War on Terror.” The complaint is brought on behalf of 12 torture victims – 11 Iraqi citizens who were held at Abu Ghraib prison and one Guantánamo detainee – and is being filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the Republican Attorneys' Association (RAV) and others, all represented by Berlin Attorney Wolfgang Kaleck. The complaint is related to a 2004 complaint that was dismissed, but the new complaint is filed with much new evidence, new defendants and plaintiffs, a new German Federal Prosecutor and, most important, under new circumstances that include the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense and the passage of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 in the U.S. granting officials retroactive immunity from prosecution for war crimes.
Executive Summary of the Complaint’s Allegations:
From Donald Rumsfeld on down, the political and military leaders in charge of ordering, allowing and implementing abusive interrogation techniques in the context of the “War on Terror” since September 11, 2001, must be investigated and held accountable. The complaint alleges that American military and civilian high-ranking officials named as defendants in the case have committed war crimes against detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and in the U.S.-controlled Guantánamo Bay prison camp.
The complaint alleges that the defendants “ordered” war crimes, “aided or abetted” war crimes, or “failed, as civilian superiors or military commanders, to prevent their commission by subordinates, or to punish their subordinates,” actions that are explicitly criminalized by German law. The U.S. administration has treated hundreds if not thousands of detainees in a coercive manner, in accordance with “harsh interrogation techniques” ordered by Secretary Rumsfeld himself that legally constitute torture and/or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, in blatant violation of the provisions of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, the 1984 Convention Against Torture and the 1977 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights – to all of which the United States is a party. Under international humanitarian treaty and customary law, and as re-stated in German law, these acts of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment constitute war crimes.
The U.S. torture program that resulted in war crimes was aided and abetted by the government lawyers also named in this case: former Chief White House Counsel (and current Attorney General) Alberto R. Gonzales, former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, and General Counsel of the Department of Defense William James Haynes, II. While some of them claim to merely have given legal opinions, those opinions were false or clearly erroneous and given in a context where it was known and foreseeable to these lawyers that torture would be the result. Not only was torture foreseeable, but this legal advice was given to facilitate and aid and abet torture as well as to attempt to immunize those who tortured. Without these opinions, the torture program could not have occurred. The infamous “Torture Memo” dated August 1, 2002, is the key document that redefined torture so narrowly that such classic and age old torture techniques as water-boarding were authorized to be employed and were employed by U.S. officials against detainees.
Why Germany?
The complaint is being filed under the Code of Crimes against International Law (CCIL), enacted by Germany in compliance with the Rome Statute creating the International Criminal Court in 2002, which Germany ratified. The CCIL provides for “universal jurisdiction” for war crimes, crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity. It enables the German Federal Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute crimes constituting a violation of the CCIL, irrespective of the location of the defendant or plaintiff, the place where the crime was carried out, or the nationality of the persons involved.
No international courts or personal tribunals in Iraq were mandated to conduct investigations and prosecutions of responsible U.S. officials. The United States has refused to join the International Criminal Court, thereby foreclosing the option of pursuing a prosecution in international courts. Iraq has no authority to prosecute. Furthermore, the U.S. gave immunity to all its personnel in Iraq from Iraqi prosecution. All this added to the United States’ unquestionable refusal to look at the responsibility of those of the very top of the chain of command and named in the present complaint, and the recent passage of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (see below) aimed at preventing war crimes prosecutions against Americans in the U.S., German courts are seen as a last resort to obtain justice for those victims of abuse and torture while detained by the United States.
The Plaintiffs in the Case:
The complaint is being filed on behalf of 11 Iraqi citizens who were victims of gruesome crimes at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison. They were severely beaten, deprived of sleep and food, sexually abused, stripped naked and hooded, and exposed to extreme temperatures.
Another plaintiff in the case is Mohammed al Qahtani, a Saudi citizen detained at Guantánamo since January 2002. At Guantánamo, Mr. al Qahtani was subjected to a regime of aggressive interrogation techniques, known as the “First Special Interrogation Plan,” that were authorized by U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and implemented under the supervision and guidance of Secretary Rumsfeld and the commander of Guantánamo, defendant Major General Geoffrey Miller. These methods included fifty days of severe sleep deprivation and 20-hour interrogations, forced nudity, sexual humiliation, religious humiliation, physical force, prolonged stress positions and prolonged sensory over-stimulation.
None of these plaintiffs – and the hundreds of other detainees subjected to similar abuses – has seen justice, and none of those who authorized these techniques at the top of the chain of command have been held liable for it, or even seriously and independently investigated.
The Defendants in the Case:
The U.S. high-ranking officials charged include:
- Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
- Former CIA Director George Tenet
- Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Dr. Stephen Cambone
- Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez
- Major General Walter Wojdakowski
- Major General Geoffrey Miller
- Colonel Thomas Pappas
- Former Chief White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales
- Former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee
- Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo
- General Counsel of the Department of Defense William James Haynes, II
- Vice President Chief Counsel David S. Addington
The 2004 Complaint:
In November 2004, the previous German Federal Prosecutor failed to prosecute an earlier complaint against many of these same defendants filed by CCR with the support of FIDH and RAV. The U.S. pressured Germany to drop the case, saying not doing so would jeopardize U.S.-German relations, and the complaint was ultimately dismissed in February 2005 on the eve of a visit by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to Munich, Germany. In dismissing the case, the Prosecutor stated: “there are no indications that the authorities and courts of the United States of America are refraining, or would refrain, from penal measures as regards the violations described in the complaint.” The passage of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 immunizing officials and others from prosecution and much new evidence shows this is not the case.
The Impact of the Military Commissions Act of 2006:
The Military Commissions Act was signed by President Bush on October 17, 2006, and it protects U.S. officials and military personnel by: 1) narrowing the grounds of criminal liability under the War Crimes Act and making those revisions retroactive to November 26, 1997; and by 2) retroactively extending a defense for criminal prosecutions related to detentions and interrogations back to September 11, 2001. These immunizing provisions essentially grant an amnesty for international crimes including war crimes and torture. The retroactivity provision directs that prosecutions of war crimes committed since 1997 will fall under the new narrowed range of standards and interpretations of war crimes, which would protect civilians from being prosecuted for committing acts that would have been considered war crimes under the old definition – thereby explicitly aiming at immunizing American officials and others from prosecution in their country.
How the 2006 Complaint Is a Stronger Case:
The grounds for the 2005 dismissal are no longer justified:
The prosecutor’s original decision to dismiss the case was solely based on the assumption that an ongoing investigation was being carried out in the U.S. regarding the Abu Ghraib scandal. We now have extensive evidence that demonstrates that this investigation was directed only towards the criminal culpability of the lowest ranking military personnel. Indeed, some of these very defendants have been or are being rewarded with higher-level appointments and medals. The investigative and prosecutorial functions in the United States are currently directly controlled by the ones involved in the conspiracy to perpetrate war crimes and named in this complaint, which politically blocks possible investigations and criminal prosecutions. Furthermore, the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 is unquestionably the clearest illustration of such unwillingness to prosecute Americans for war crimes.
New evidence:
Extraordinary new materials, documentation and testimonies that have come to light over the past two years – about what the plaintiffs went through (Mr. al Qahtani is a new plaintiff to the case), about the signed memos that led to the justification and practice of torture, and about the defendants’ personal involvement – only strengthen the case.
In addition, former U.S. Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, a defendant in the earlier complaint as the commanding officer at Abu Ghraib, is now providing testimony and will testify on behalf of the plaintiffs.
New additional defendants:
The new complaint charges the government lawyers alleged to be the legal architects of the Bush Administration’s practice of torture.
Rumsfeld can no longer claim sovereign immunity:
Rumsfeld’s resignation on November 8, 2006, means that he cannot claim either the functional or personal immunity of sovereign officials from international prosecution for war crimes. Functional immunity – related to acts performed in the exercise of a person’s official functions – does not, since the Nuremberg trials in 1945, apply to international crimes such as war crimes. As to personal immunity – covering officials’ private acts accomplished while in office – it only applies during the individual’s term of office.
Unprecedented support for the case:
When filing a complaint to the Federal Prosecutor, any group may join the complaint as a “co-plaintiff,” which demonstrates the support of these groups and their common request for the opening of an investigation. Co-plaintiffs in the present case include:
- The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)
- The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
- The Republican Attorneys' Association (RAV)
- The International Peace Bureau, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1910
- 1980 Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel
- 2002 Nobel Peace Prize winner Martín Almada
- The National Lawyers’ Guild (NLG)
- International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA)
- Lawyers against the War (LAW)
- European Democratic Lawyers
- European Democratic Jurists
- The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR)
- Veterans for Peace
Thursday, September 14, 2006
African-Americans Will Lead Demonstration Against Torture Sept. 15th @ 11:00 a.m.
African-Americans Will Lead Demonstration Against Torture Sept. 15th @ 11:00
a.m.
Dear Colleagues,
African-Americans under the leadership of the National Conference of Black
Lawyers have been meeting every Thursday for the last several weeks in order
to formulate a response to the torture, with impunity, of over 100 Black men
and women.
As you may be already aware, the torture of African-American people by the
Chicago police is well established. During the period from 1972 to 1991,
primarily at a south side police station known as Area 2 Headquarters, a
group of police officers under the leadership of former Chicago Police
Commander Jon Burge systematically committed brutal acts of torture against
citizens of African descent who were in police custody. The torture included
the administration of electric shocks to the victims' ears and/or exposed
genitalia using a cattle prod or a hand-cranked generator; conducting mock
executions with unloaded firearms; suffocating victims with plastic
typewriter covers; and burning victims by holding them against hot
radiators, among other techniques. Such treatment fits the definition of
"torture" as delineated in Article 1 of the Convention Against Torture.
To date, over 100 Black men and women have been identified as having been
victimized by the police torture described above. [1] Typically, confessions
to serious crimes were extracted from the victims for use at a criminal
trial prosecuted by the Cook County State's Attorney's office. These
involuntary confessions were the basis, partly or wholly, for criminal
convictions.
Of the Area 2 victims, it is estimated that several dozen remain in prison
today. Some of the victims were sentenced to death and spent many years on
Illinois' Death Row, until their sentences and those of all other Illinois
Death Row inmates were commuted in 2003 by former Illinois Governor George
Ryan. Governor Ryan also pardoned four of the Burge torture victims on the
grounds of actual innocence: Aaron Patterson, Madison Hobley, Leroy Orange,
and Stanley Howard.
A number of judgments acknowledging torture have been rendered in civil
cases brought by victims, as well as by appellate courts reviewing some of
the victims' criminal convictions. Furthermore, Chicago Police investigators
have admitted the systematic nature of the practice in a 1990 report by the
Office of Professional Standards (OPS) which cited 50 cases of the torture
and abuse at Area 2. In a document known as the Goldstone Report, the OPS
concluded that abuse was "systematic", "methodical", and "included
psychological techniques and planned torture." Further, the United Nations
has found that the United States violated the human rights of the men and
women tortured at Area 2. Nevertheless, the perpetrators of the torture
continue to enjoy impunity with regard to their crimes. To date, none have
ever been charged with a crime.
Since private parties or victims to crimes do not have the right to
institute criminal proceedings under our legal system, the victims and their
families must rely on the prosecutor exercising their discretion to bring
criminal charges against the officers. Despite numerous requests by victims,
civil society organizations, and the media, none of the police officers or
higher level officials responsible for established incidents of torture has
ever been charged with a crime. The responsible local authority for the
initiation of criminal charges in these cases is the Cook County State's
Attorney. Richard M. Daley, the Cook County State's Attorney at the time
Area 2 abuses were first brought to public attention, is now Mayor of the
City of Chicago. Neither State's Attorney Daley nor his successor Richard
Devine, ever instituted a criminal prosecution against any of the officials
responsible for torture in Area 2. Nor has the United State's Attorney for
the Northern District of Illinois (an office of the federal government with
authority over federal crimes) ever charged any of those responsible.
Since the Special Prosecutor's report documents the torture, but fails to
anything about it, the question then becomes what are we, the
African-American community, going to do about it? We must do something and
that is why the National Conference of Black Lawyers, along with many other
individuals and organizations, have come together under the banner of "Black
People Against Police Torture" to demand that something be done. The purpose
of this letter is to invite you and your group to join us on September 15,
2006 @ 11:00 a.m. at the Federal Plaza on Jackson and Dearborn, and
participate in a Silent Mass Demonstration in protest of police torture.
The Mass demonstration is not the only action that we are undertaking. Of
the judges seeking retention in this November's election, eight were
actively involved in the torture conspiracy or acquiesced to the torture of
Black people. We shall mobilize to deny their retention. Further, we have
drafted a bill providing for a comprehensive Reparations law for torture
victims. This bill will provide a process that will facilitate the release
of the remaining 27 torture victims from Illinois prisons.
It is time we step up and let our voices (votes) be heard. It is not too
late, criminal charges can still be brought if we demand them! Come, join us
on September 15th. Be proud to be Black. We must channel our outrage into
action.
_____
[1] Victims have been located by attorneys, civil society organizations, and
by the Special Prosecutor appointed by the Circuit Court of Cook County who
in July 2006 reported a total of 135 documented cases of torture and abuse
by police under the command of Jon Burge.
[
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