BUSH & CO WAR CRIMINALS? (great online article!)

[StoneMtn]

Davidson, cochair of an international group called Lawyers Against the War (LAW), says she is the only person in the world who has ever laid criminal charges against Bush. On November 30, 2004, Davidson walked into Vancouver Provincial Court and convinced a justice of the peace to accept seven Criminal Code charges against Bush while he was visiting Canada. She brought evidence to support her contention that Bush should be held criminally responsible for counselling, aiding, and abetting torture at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and at a U.S. military jail at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Each offence carries a prison sentence of up to 14 years.

Click here for the complete article.

[CookieMonster]

It's too bad this wasn't done sooner. Good on her!

[AD]

I believe that one of LAW's heavy-hitters was one of my Human Rights Law professors at Carleton. Her name is Amy Bartholomew..

AD

[Ms.Huxtable]

When Gittings was asked what his goal is in pursuing these cases, he replied: “George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Ashcroft, and everybody down the line in prison, serving probably life sentences for their crimes, actually.”

Wouldn't that be nice. It so frustrating that these people are above the law, above Geneva Conventions and above the United Nations. Makes me ill.

Thanks for the article. Great read. What can we do to support this cause?

[StoneMtn]

If you are interested in supporting this, I highly encourage you to email Gail Davidson at law@portal.ca.

There are many members of Lawyers Against the War who are not lawyers, and Gail is interested in supporting speakers/events in all different regions to further this cause. (For instance, I hosted an evening in Whistler wherein the Director of the Institute for Co-operation in Space spoke on opposing the US plans for a "missile defence system" aka "Star Wars".)

I have no doubt she would be pleased to hear from you and would undoubtedly have something she would like you to do; especially considering your proximity to our nation's capital.

[Ms.Huxtable]

BOO - Doing a bit more reading I came across this from LAW's website (www.lawyersagainstthewar.org).

The Canadian government used a claim of diplomatic immunity Monday to block torture charges laid under the Canadian Criminal Code against President George W. Bush. The charges had been laid by Gail Davidson of LAW [Lawyers against the War] on the occasion of Bush’s visit to Canada on November 30. They concerned the well-known abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, photos of which shocked the world earlier this year, as well as similar abuses at Guantánamo Bay that have emerged more recently. On behalf of LAW, Davidson was seeking to fix a date for a hearing into the charges and came armed with evidence, but Judge William Kitchen acceded to the Attorney General’s objections and declared the charges ‘a nullity’.

“Of course, they’re not a nullity”, said Professor Michael Mandel, co-chair of LAW, who criticized the decision as “irregular in procedure and wrong in substance.” “These charges were properly laid and backed up by powerful evidence. The government didn’t deny that evidence because it couldn’t deny it. Diplomatic immunity is purely procedural. It doesn’t affect the validity of the charges, only whether they can be proceeded with, for the time being, in a foreign court, in this case a Canadian court. Even if Bush has immunity, it’s only temporary and it won’t shield him or anyone in his administration from Canadian law, or any other law, when they leave office. That the Canadian government would try to hush this up by hiding Bush behind diplomatic immunity was only to be expected. Paul Martin invited Bush here to ingratiate himself with the President, despite the President’s crimes against our laws and against international law, despite even his inadmissibility as a war criminal under Canada’s immigration laws – above all, despite the unending human disaster the President’s illegal ‘war of choice’ has brought to the people of Iraq.”

Vancouver lawyer Gail Davidson, who laid the charges, said “We have a lot of objections to the way these charges were handled. We can’t see the legal basis for sealing the courtroom and excluding the press and the public. We think the claim of immunity was premature and exaggerated, and the quashing of the charges not authorized by the law. We are considering our options, including an appeal of the decision. One thing we will do for sure is to pursue similar charges in Germany as part of the prosecution launched there by the American Center for Constitutional Rights. There is good reason to believe that the German authorities will show more backbone than the government of Canada in the face of the Bush administration’s trashing of international human rights law.”

[Ms.Huxtable]

Thanks Caveman and kudos to you for doing your part.

[StoneMtn]

(Re Ms. Hux's second-last post...)

Yep ... and in case you are unaware, the Germans have also dismissed the charges that LAW tried to bring in Germany, alleging lack of jurisdiction as none of the victims and none of the accused had any connection to Germany.

[Velvet]

Isn't Germany part of planet Earth?

[StoneMtn]

yes. [color:"purple"](at least since 1945).

[GWB]

i read this article and it stirred up a whole bunch of different emotions. after much deliberation and 3 senate commities, our reply is.......

[paisley]

[Lazlo]

So,did you?