The Open Globe – 2012-05-15 13:31:59

http://theopenglobe.org/wiki/Malaysia_tribunal_finds_Bush,_Cheney,_Rumsfeld_guilty_of_war_crimes

KUALA LUMPUR (May 13, 2012) — Former US president George W Bush and several members of his administration were found guilty in absentia of war crimes by a tribunal in Malaysia on Saturday.

The second “Kuala Lumpur War Crime Tribunal” found Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their legal advisers Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo guilty of torture and war crimes. The vote was unanimous among the five-panel tribunal after the week-long hearing.

The trial, held in Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur, featured testimony by victims whom US military contractors and soldiers had violently abused. Full transcripts of witness statements and other content will be given to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, the United Nations, and the Security Council. Additionally, the tribunal has requested that the names of Bush and the six others be added to the Comission’s Register of War Criminals.

Although some consider this tribunal to be symbolic only, according to human rights activist and lawyer Francis Boyle, it could be the start of similar trials against Bush in other parts of the world.

Boyle, who was on the prosecution team and is a professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law in America, said: “This is the first conviction of these people anywhere 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.”

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