To Mr Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Chief Prosecutor, International Criminal Court
Dear Mr Moreno-Ocampo,
For over fifty years I have been a lawyer (now in retirement), and during that time I have had practical hands-on experience of international law at the highest level and criminal law (among other disciplines) at all levels. My experience has also caused me in many fields to work under two very different judicial systems, namely that in operation in England and Wales and that applied in France.
I was greatly upset to hear on the radio that you had decided to seek an arrest warrant against Mr Omar el-Basheer, the current President of Sudan, for his alleged personal responsibility for crimes committed in Darfour, but that you had no desire to initiate proceedings against either Mr George Walker Bush, the current President of the United States of America, or Mr Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, for their admitted personal responsibility for crimes affecting Iraq.
To an experienced lawyer such as I am this seems an extraordinary attitude on your part, since it would seem normal to act first in cases where the accused person admits (and even boasts of) extremely serious breaches of the Nuremberg Principles, as well as provisions of certain Geneva Conventions.
It also seems to me that there is a difference of scale in the offences which either apply or could apply to the facts. The thousands of victims of repression in Darfour are much fewer in number than the victims of the actions of Mr Bush and Mr Blair (and many of those to whom they gave orders) when they decided to wage war against the people of Iraq and subsequently to occupy that country.
It seems to me that you, as Chief Prosecutor at the I.C.C., have an absolute duty to pursue those who admit that they have acted in ways which are so seriously in breach of international criminal law.
If you take the trouble to re-read the Nuremberg Principles, you will find in Principle VI extremely clear definitions of Crimes against Peace, War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity, and Principle VII adds that complicity in any one or more of these crimes set out in Principle VI is also a crime under international law.
If you consider these simply definitions, it seems impossible for you not to draw the conclusion that these two men (and many of their advisers and servants) are clearly guilty of Crimes against Peace and also appear to have been complicit in both War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity.
A summary of these three forms of criminality under Principle VI can be made as follows:
a) Crimes against Peace, in that they planned, prepared, initiated and waged a war of aggression against Iraq in direct violation of the international agreement set out in clearly worded United Nations Security Council Resolutions;
b) War Crimes, in that they were party to the ill-treatment and deportation of civilians, and prisoners of war, such as those who were sent to Guantanamo Bay from Afghanistan and elsewhere, and also in the destruction of cities, towns and villages in Iraq (there have also been the use of torture on prisoners);
c) Crimes against Humanity, in that they were involved in the murder and extermination of civilians (as in Fallujah) and the deportation of civilians to Guantanamo Bay.
Under Principle VII things look even worse for both men, since they have been complicit in many crimes committed in many countries including those already mentioned.
I have limited myself in this letter to specific crimes committed in relation to Iraq and Afghanistan, but similar points can be made concerning both men (and their advisers and servants) regarding other lands, particularly the Lebanon and Palestine, under Principle VII, for having provided the aggressors with vast quantities of arms knowing full well that they would be used for unjustified aggression.
The obvious question is therefore why you do not immediately seek arrest warrants against Mr George Walker Bush and Mr Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (and some of the others suggested above). The fact that the United States of America refuses to recognise the I.C.C. should not prevent your so doing, since these people could be arrested if and when they might dare to enter any country which does recognise the Court.
I would be very happy to hear from you, but I do not intend holding my breath while waiting, since your decision to act against Mr Omar el-Basheer seems to be a sign both of shocking partiality against such a man while failing to act against much worse offenders and of an unwillingness to act against persons for the sole reason that they are powerful.
Yours sincerely,
Robert Thompson
Avocat Honoraire au Barreau de Boulogne-sur-Mer
22 rue de l’Eglise
62990 RIMBOVAL
FRANCE
-o-o-o-
Reply received:
Our reference: OTP-CR-302/08
The Hague, 28 July 2008
Dear Sir, Madam,
The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court acknowledges receipt of your documents/letter.
This communication has been duly entered in the Correspondence Register of the Office. We will give consideration to this communication, as appropriate, in accordance with the provisions of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
As soon as a decision is reached, we will inform you, in writing, and provide you with reasons for this decision.
Yours sincerely,
Head of Information & Evidence Unit
Office of the Prosecutor
-o-o-o-
Further letter from Robert Thompson:
Rimboval, 31st July 2008
Your reference : OTP-CR-302/08
Dear Sirs,
I thank you for your letter of 28th July 2008, and note the situation, and I await with interest receiving the decision which will be taken on the subject of the crimes committed by the person whom I named – i.e. Mr George Walker Bush and Mr Anthony Charles Lynton Blair – under the terms of Principles VI and VII of the Nuremberg Principles.
Yours faithfully,
Robert Thompson
A trial that depends on handicapping the defense can’t possibly be fair. The military judge tried at times to mitigate the commission’s most unjust rules, but the flaws in the system won out. 
Peace and Justice Post 
U.K. Government Must Provide Information About Rendition, Disappearance and Torture, Urges Amnesty International
August 30, 2008CommonDreams.0rg
WASHINGTON – August 29 – Amnesty International today called on the government of the U.K. to give the lawyers for Binyam Mohamed, a former U.K. resident imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, information which it holds and which might help him to show that he has been a victim of torture and other ill-treatment in the U.S.-led program of renditions and secret detention.
“Providing this information would be a first step towards accountability for the U.K.’s involvement in the U.S. program of rendition and secret detention, as well as in the torture and other ill-treatment of terrorist suspects,” said Halya Gowan, a spokesperson on Europe at Amnesty International.
Binyam Mohamed was arrested at Karachi airport in April 2002 and transferred to U.S. custody three months later. In July 2002, he was transferred on a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-registered plane to Morocco, where he was held for about 18 months. There, Binyam Mohamed reports he was tortured, including having his penis cut by a razor blade. He was allegedly subjected to further torture after his further rendition to the “dark prison” in Kabul, Afghanistan, in January 2004. After five months, he was transferred to the U.S. airbase in Bagram, and suffered further alleged ill-treatment there. Binyam was transferred in mid-September 2004 to Guantanamo where he has remained ever since.
“Statements that Binyam Mohamed made in the course of his unlawful detention will form the basis of charges against him if he is tried before a military commission at Guantanamo Bay – a trial which would be unfair, and could involve charges which could be punishable by death. Any information the U.K. authorities have which relates to violations of his human rights or could affect Binyam Mohamed’s defense should be disclosed to his lawyers without any further delay,” said Gowan.
Following last week’s ruling by the High Court of England and Wales, that the United Kingdom has a duty to disclose this information to lawyers for Binyam Mohamed, today the High Court postponed its decision on an application made by the U.K. Foreign Secretary to be allowed to withhold this information. The Foreign Secretary claimed that its disclosure would damage the U.K.’s intelligence-sharing arrangements with the United States, and thus threaten the United Kingdom’s national security. The Foreign Secretary has been given another week to provide the court with a fuller explanation for continuing to withhold this information.
Binyam Mohamed’s lawyers need the information now, before a decision is taken about whether he should be tried by a military commission in the United States. It is essential to their claim that the information on which the charges against him are based was improperly obtained.
Recent revelations of secret detainee transfers through Diego Garcia, and around the Untied Kingdom’s involvement in the rendition and secret detention of U.K .residents Bisher al-Rawi and Jamil el-Banna, show that the United Kingdom can no longer hide its involvement in these human rights violations.
“Secrecy with the excuse of protecting diplomatic relations can no longer be used to justify the failure to investigate the involvement of U.K. agents in human rights violations,” Gowan said.
Amnesty International calls on the U.K. authorities to immediately instigate a genuinely independent and impartial public inquiry into all allegations of U.K. involvement in the renditions program.
BACKGROUND
Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian national, claims that he was subjected to torture and other ill-treatment in Pakistan, Morocco, Afghanistan and Guantanamo. The detainee claims that statements he made–which, as the High Court affirmed, will form the basis of evidence against him if he is tried by a military commission -were the products of his unlawful detention, torture and ill-treatment.
In August 2007, after a sustained campaign by human rights activists and lawyers in the United Kingdom, the U.K. government requested the release from Guantanamo Bay a number of former U.K. residents, including Binyam Mohamed. Although three men were returned in December 2007, the U.S. authorities refused the request for the release and return of Binyam Mohamed. The U.K. authorities say that they are continuing to request the release and return of Binyam Mohamed.
The U.K. government has disclosed the information that it holds about Binyam Mohamed to the U.S. authorities; and the U.S. authorities have given the U.K. a promise that this information will be given to Binyam Mohamed’s military lawyer in the event that his case should be sent for trial before a military commission. But to date neither the United Kingdom nor the United States has disclosed that information–relevant to the rendition of Binyam Mohamed and his subsequent treatment in detention–to his lawyers.
Amnesty International believes that the military commission procedures at Guantanamo Bay are fundamentally unfair, and has called for the military commission system to be abandoned, and for all those still held at Guantanamo Bay to be released or given a genuinely fair trial before federal civilian courts without delay.
For more information, please visit Amnesty International’s website at www.amnestyusa.org or contact the AIUSA media office.
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Tags:Amnesty International, Binyam Mohamed, CIA, Guantanamo Bay, High Court's ruling, The United States, torture, United Kingdom, US reditions
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