Crimes Against Humanity
Complaint Filed Against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al
International Arrest Warrants Requested
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24447.htm
January 20, 2010 "Information
Clearing House" - -Professor Francis A. Boyle of the University
of Illinois College of Law in Champaign, U.S.A. has filed a Complaint with the
Prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (I.C.C.) in The Hague against
U.S. citizens George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet,
Condoleezza Rice, and Alberto Gonzales (the “Accused”) for their criminal policy
and practice of “extraordinary rendition” perpetrated upon about 100 human
beings. This term is really their euphemism for the enforced disappearance of
persons and their consequent torture. This criminal policy and practice by the
Accused constitute Crimes against Humanity in violation of the Rome Statute
establishing the I.C.C.
The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute. Nevertheless the Accused
have ordered and been responsible for the commission of I.C.C. statutory crimes
within the respective territories of many I.C.C. member states, including
several in Europe. Consequently, the I.C.C. has jurisdiction to prosecute the
Accused for their I.C.C. statutory crimes under Rome Statute article 12(2)(a)
that affords the I.C.C. jurisdiction to prosecute for I.C.C. statutory crimes
committed in I.C.C. member states.
The Complaint requests (1) that the I.C.C. Prosecutor open an investigation of
the Accused on his own accord under Rome Statute article 15(1); and (2) that the
I.C.C. Prosecutor also formally “submit to the
For similar reasons, the Highest Level Officials of the Obama administration
risk the filing of a follow-up Complaint with the I.C.C. if they do not
immediately terminate the Accused’s criminal policy and practice of
“extraordinary rendition,” which the Obama administration has continued to
implement.
The Complaint concludes with a request that the I.C.C. Prosecutor obtain
International Arrest Warrants for the Accused from the I.C.C. in accordance with
Rome Statute articles 58(1)(a), 58(1)(b)(i), 58(1)(b)(ii), and 58(1)(b)(iii).
In order to demonstrate your support for this Complaint you can contact the
I.C.C. Prosecutor by letter, fax, or email as indicated below.
Francis A. Boyle
Professor of International Law
Law Building
504 East Pennsylvania Avenue
Champaign, Illinois 61820
Phone: 217-333-7954
Fax: 217-244-1478
The Honorable Luis Moreno-Ocampo
Office of the Prosecutor
International Criminal Court
Post Office Box 19519
2500 CM, The Hague
The Netherlands
Fax No.: 31-70-515-8555
Email:
OTP.InformationDesk@icc-cpi.int
January 19, 2010
Dear Sir:
Please accept my personal compliments. I have the honor hereby to file with you
and the International Criminal Court this Complaint against U.S. citizens George
W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Condoleezza Rice , and
Alberto Gonzales (hereinafter referred to as the “Accused”) for their criminal
policy and practice of “extraordinary rendition.” This term is really a
euphemism for the enforced disappearances of persons, their torture, severe
deprivation of their liberty, their violent sexual abuse, and other inhumane
acts perpetrated upon these Victims. The Accused have inflicted this criminal
policy and practice of “extraordinary rendition” upon about one hundred (100)
human beings, almost all of whom are Muslims/Arabs/Asians and People of Color. I
doubt very seriously that the Accused would have inflicted these criminal
practices upon 100 White Judeo-Christian men.
The Accused’s criminal policy and practice of “extraordinary rendition” are both
“widespread” and “systematic” within the meaning of Rome Statute article 7(1).
Therefore the Accused have committed numerous “Crimes against Humanity” in
flagrant and repeated and longstanding violation of Rome Statute articles
5(1)(b), 7(1)(a), 7(1)(e), 7(1)(f), 7(1)(g), 7(1)(h), 7(1)(i), and 7(1)(k).
Furthermore, the Accused’s Rome Statute Crimes Against Humanity of enforced
disappearances of persons constitutes ongoing criminal activity that continues
even as of today.
The United States is not a contracting party to the Rome Statute. Nevertheless,
the Accused ordered and were responsible for the commission of these I.C.C.
statutory crimes on, in, and over the respective territories of several I.C.C.
member states, including many located in Europe. Therefore, the I.C.C. has
jurisdiction over the Accused for their I.C.C. statutory crimes in accordance
with Rome Statute article 12(2)(a), which provides as follows:
Article 12
Preconditions to the Exercise of Jurisdiction
…
2. In the case of article 13, paragraph (a) or (c), the Court may exercise its
jurisdiction if one or more of the following States are Parties to this Statute
or have accepted the jurisdiction of the Court in accordance with paragraph 3:
(a) The State on the territory of which the conduct in question occurred …
So the fact that United States is not a contracting party to the Rome Statute is
no bar to the I.C.C.’s prosecution of the Accused because they have ordered and
been responsible for the commission of Rome Statute Crimes against Humanity on,
in, and over the respective territories of several I.C.C. member states.
Consequently, I hereby respectfully request that the Court exercise its
jurisdiction over the Accused for these Crimes against Humanity in accordance
with Rome Statute article 13(c), which provides as follows:
Article 13
Exercise of Jurisdiction
The Court may exercise its jurisdiction with respect to a crime referred to in
article 5 in accordance with the provisions of this Statute if:
…
(c) The Prosecutor has initiated an investigation in respect of such a crime in
accordance with article 15.
Pursuant to Rome Statute article 13(c), I hereby respectfully request that you
initiate an investigation proprio motu against the Accused in accordance with
Rome Statute article 15(1): “The Prosecutor may initiate investigations proprio
motu on the basis of information on crimes within the jurisdiction of the
Court.” My detailed Complaint against the Accused constitutes the sufficient
“information” required by article 15(1).
Furthermore, I respectfully submit that this Complaint by itself constitutes “a
reasonable basis to proceed with an investigation” under Rome Statute article
15(3). Hence, I also respectfully request that you formally “submit to the
Pre-Trial Chamber a request for authorization of an investigation” of the
Accused under Rome Statute article 15(3) at this time. Please inform me at your
earliest convenience about the status and disposition of my two requests set
forth immediately above.
Based upon your extensive human rights work in Argentina, you know full well
from direct personal experience the terrors and the horrors of enforced
disappearances of persons and their consequent torture. According to reputable
news media sources here in the United States, about 100 human beings have been
subjected to enforced disappearances and subsequent torture by the Accused. We
still have no accounting for these Victims. In other words, many of these
Victims of enforced disappearances and torture by the Accused could still be
alive today. Their very lives are at stake right now as we communicate. You
could very well save some of their lives by publicly stating that you are
opening an investigation of my Complaint.
As for those Victims of enforced disappearances by the Accused who have died,
your opening an investigation of my Complaint is the only means by which we
might be able to obtain some explanation and accounting for their whereabouts
and the location of their remains in order to communicate this critical
information to their next-of-kin and loved-ones. Based upon your extensive
experience combating enforced disappearances of persons and their consequent
torture in Argentina, you know full well how important that objective is. The
next-of-kin, loved-ones, and friends of “disappeared” human beings can never
benefit from psychological “closure” unless and until there is an accounting for
the fates, if not the remains, of the Victims. In part that is precisely why the
Accused’s enforced disappearances of about 100 human beings constitutes ongoing
criminal activity that continues as of today and will continue until the fates
of all their Victims have been officially determined by you opening an
investigation into my Complaint.
Let us mutually suppose that during the so-called “dirty war” in Argentina the
International Criminal Court had been in existence. I submit that as an
Argentinean human rights lawyer you would have moved heaven and earth and done
everything in your power to get the I.C.C. and its Prosecutor to assume
jurisdiction over the Argentine Junta in order to terminate and prosecute their
enforced disappearances and torture of your fellow Argentinean citizens. I would
have done the same. Unfortunately, the I.C.C. did not exist during those darkest
of days for the Argentine Republic when we could have so acted. But today as the
I.C.C. Prosecutor, you have both the opportunity and the legal power to do
something to rectify this mass and total human rights annihilation, and to
resolve and to terminate and to prosecute the “widespread” and “systematic”
policy and practice of enforced disappearances and consequent torture of about
100 human beings by the Accused.
Unfortunately, the new Obama administration in the United States has made it
perfectly clear by means of public statements by President Obama and his
Attorney General Eric Holder that they are not going to open any criminal
investigation of any of the Accused for these aforementioned Crimes against
Humanity. Hence an I.C.C. “case” against the Accused is “admissible” under Rome
Statute article 1(complementarity) and article 17. As of right now you and the
I.C.C. Judges are the only people in the entire world who can bring some degree
of Justice, Closure, and Healing into this dire, tragic, and deplorable
situation for the lives and well-being of about one hundred “disappeared” and
tortured human beings as well as for their loved-ones and next-of-kin, who are
also Victims of the Accused’s Crimes against Humanity. On behalf of them all, as
a fellow human rights lawyer I implore you to open an investigation into my
Complaint and to issue a public statement to that effect.
Also, most regretfully, the new Obama administration has publicly stated that it
will continue the Accused’s policy and practice of "extraordinary rendition,"
which is really their euphemism for enforced disappearances of human beings and
consequent torture by other States. Hence the Highest Level Officials of the
Obama administration fully intend to commit their own Crimes against Humanity
under the I.C.C. Rome Statute – unless you stop them! Your opening an
investigation of my Complaint will undoubtedly deter the Obama administration
from engaging in any more “extraordinary renditions” -- enforced disappearances
of human beings and having them tortured by other States. Indeed your opening of
an investigation into my Complaint might encourage the Obama administration to
terminate its criminal “extraordinary rendition” program immediately and
thoroughly by means of issuing a public statement to that effect. In other
words, your opening an investigation of my Complaint could very well save the
lives of a large number of additional human beings who otherwise will be
subjected by the Obama administration to the Rome Statute Crimes against
Humanity of enforced disappearances of persons and their consequent torture by
other States, inter alia.
The lives and well-being of countless human beings are now at risk, hanging in
the balance, waiting for you to act promptly, effectively, and immediately to
save them from becoming Victims of Rome Statute Crimes against Humanity
perpetrated by the Highest Level Officials of the Obama administration as
successors-in-law to the Accused by opening an investigation of my Complaint.
Otherwise, I shall be forced to file with you and the I.C.C. a follow-up
Complaint against the Highest Level Officials of the Obama administration. I
certainly hope it will not come to that. Please make it so.
Finally, for reasons more fully explained in the Conclusion to my Complaint, I
respectfully request that you obtain I.C.C. arrest warrants for the Accused in
accordance with Rome Statute articles 58(1)(a), article 58(1)(b)(i), article
58(1)(b)(ii), and article 58(1)(b)(iii). The sooner, the better for all
humankind.
I respectfully request that you schedule a meeting with me at our earliest
mutual convenience in order to discuss this Complaint. I look forward to hearing
from you at your earliest convenience.
This transmission letter is an integral part of my Complaint against the Accused
and is hereby incorporated by reference into the attached Complaint dated as of
today as well.
Please accept, Sir, the assurance of my highest consideration.
Francis A. Boyle
Professor of International Law