Friday, October 21, 2005

Charging Bush with war crimes

Daily Kos alerts us to this article in Counterpunch -- Prosecuting Bush in Canada for Torture -- about a group trying to charge Bush with war crimes.
Ms. [Gail] Davidson and Lawyers Against the War have laid charges against George Bush Jr; accusing him of aiding, abetting, and counseling the commission of torture. This charge is based on the abuses of the prisoners held at the U.S. prisons in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba and Abu-Ghraib, Iraq including Canadian minor Omar Khadr, who has been held in Cuba since 2001. "Many Canadians don't realize that we have not only the right but the responsibility to pursue these charges, it is a responsibility that the Canadian government owes not only to the people of Canada, but to the people of the world. The 1987 Convention Against Torture [And Other Cruel, Inhuman Or Degrading Treatment Or Punishment] binds us to this action." . . . "The American legal system seems incapable of bringing him to justice and there are no international courts with jurisdiction. So it's up to Canada to enforce the law that everybody has signed on to but nobody else seems willing to apply."
The attempt to bring charges has been going on for ten months, since Bush's visit to Canada last year, but the case was under a publication ban for some reason. The BC Supreme Court removed the ban because no one could defend it.
Apparently this group, Lawyers against the War, is pursuing charges against Bush in Germany too.

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