Former US President George W Bush, his Vice-President Dick Cheney and six other members of his administration have been found guilty of war crimes by a tribunal in Malaysia.
Bush, Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and five of their legal advisers were tried in their absence and convicted on Saturday.
Victims of torture told a panel of five judges in Kuala Lumpur of their suffering at the hands of US soldiers and contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Among the evidence, Briton Moazzam Begg, an ex-Guantanamo detainee, said he was beaten, put in a hood and left in solitary confinement. Iraqi woman Jameelah Abbas Hameedi said she was stripped and humiliated in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.
Transcripts of the five-day trial will be sent to the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, the United Nations and the Security Council.
A member of the prosecution team, Professor Francis Boyle of Illinois University's College of Law, said he was hopeful that Bush and his colleagues could soon find themselves facing similar trials elsewhere in the world.
The eight accused are Bush; former US Vice President Richard Cheney; former US Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld; former Counsel to Bush, Alberto Gonzales; former General Counsel to the Vice President, David Addington; former General Counsel to the Defense Secretary, William Haynes II; former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo.
Tribunal president judge Tan Sri Lamin Mohd Yunus said the eight accused were also individually and jointly liable for crimes of torture in accordance with Article 6 of the Nuremberg Charter. "The US is subject to customary international law and to the principles of the Nuremberg Charter and exceptional circumstances such as war, instability and public emergency cannot excuse torture."
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The Star (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) reports:
Bush Found Guilty of War Crimes
KUALA LUMPUR: The War Crimes Tribunal has convicted former US President George W. Bush and seven of his associates as war criminals for torture and inhumane treatment of war crime victims at US military facilities.
However, being a tribunal of conscience, the five-member panel chaired by tribunal president judge Lamin Mohd Yunus had no power to enforce or impose custodial sentence on the convicted eight.
"We find the witnesses, who were victims placed in detention illegally by the convicted persons and their government, are entitled to payment of reparations," said Lamin at a public hearing held in an open court at the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalize War yesterday.
He added that the tribunal's award of reparations would be submitted to the War Crimes Commission and recommended the victims to find a judiciary entity that could enforce the verdict.
The tribunal would also submit the finding and records of the proceedings to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, the United Nations' Security Council.
On Thursday, head of the prosecution Prof Gurdial Singh Nijar said Bush had issued an executive order to commit war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Five former Iraqi detainees, who were tortured while being detained in various prisons, including Guantanamo Bay, were called to give their testimonies before the Tribunal during the trial which started on May 7.
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The Malaysia Sunreports:
[...] In a unanimous vote on Saturday the symbolic Malaysian war crimes tribunal, part of an initiative by former Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamad, found the former US President guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Former Malaysian Premier Mahatir Mohamad said of Bush and others: "These are basically murderers and they kill on large scale."Seven of his former political associates, including former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, were also found guilty of war crimes and torture.
Press TV has reported the court heard evidence from former detainees in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay of torture methods used by US soldiers in prisons run by the American forces.
One former inmate described how he had been subjected to electric shocks, beatings and sexual abuse over a number of months.
A high ranking former UN official, former UN Assistant Secretary General, Denis Halliday, who also attended the trial, later told Press TV that the UN had been too weak during the Bush administration to enforce the Geneva Conventions.
He said: "The UN is a weak body, corrupted by member states, who use the Security Council for their own interests. They don't respect the charter. They don't respect the international law. They don't respect the Geneva Conventions... A redundant, possibly a dangerous, and certainly corrupted organization."
Following the hearing, former Malaysian premier Mahatir said of Bush and others: "These are basically murderers and they kill on large scale."
It was the second so-called war crimes tribunal in Malaysia.
The token court was first held in November 2011 during which Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair were found guilty of committing "crimes against peace" during the Iraq war.
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