Criminal Prosecution and Accountability

Cynthia McKinney War Crimes Speech Part 1

Cynthia McKinney applauds Mohawk activist Splitting the Sky for his courageous effort in Calgary Canada to arrest George W. Bush for his criminal activities. Now, he faces 6 months in jail attempting to arrest Bush.

U.S.: Congress Out of Step with Public on Intl Law?
By Eli Clifton | IPS

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution Tuesday condemning the Goldstone Report on Israeli and Hamas actions taking during the Gaza War as "irredeemably biased" against Israel and calling on U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to oppose any consideration of the report in multilateral fora, such as the United Nations.

But a poll released just the day before found that a large majority of U.S. citizens believe the U.S. should abide by international laws and view the international legal system favourably.

House Resolution (HR) 867 called on the White House and State Department to oppose any future examinations of the report, which members of Congress felt focused disproportionally on alleged Israeli war crimes while paying little attention to violations committed by Hamas during the Gaza War from Dec. 27, 2008 to Jan. 18, 2009.

"The 344 supporters have apparently not read the report," wrote Human Rights Watch senior researcher Fred Abrahams. "The 575-page document records violations of the laws of war by Israel, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups, and concludes that all sides committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity."

"Both Israelis and Palestinians need to carry out investigations that meet international standards or face international prosecution," he said. Read more.

On Thursday, November 12, Alliance for Justice is holding a National Torture Accountability Day.

There are three ways your organization can get involved:

Take Action in Washington, DC:

On November 12th, the Federalist Society, an ultraconservative legal organization, is featuring John Yoo, one of the authors of the infamous “torture memos,” as a speaker at their annual convention at The Mayflower Hotel, 1127 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, DC.

Alliance for Justice invites local activists to join us outside the Mayflower Hotel, as we hand out copies of the U.S. Constitution and ask that Attorney General Eric Holder authorize a full investigation of the Bush administration’s descent into torture.

In a landmark case, twenty-three Americans, mostly CIA operatives, have been convicted in Italy for kidnapping a Muslim cleric from the streets of Milan in 2003. They were all tried in absentia after the United States refused to hand them over. The convictions turn them into international fugitives who risk arrest abroad. The case marks the first time any American has been convicted for taking part in a so-called “extraordinary rendition.” We go to Rome to speak with the Italian prosecutor who brought the case, Armando Spataro, and get comment from international law and human rights attorney Scott Horton. [Includes rush transcript].

Justice Denied After Seven Years of Pain and Struggle
By Stephen Rohde | Bill of Rights Defense Committee

Imagine it’s September 2002 and you are at JFK Airport changing planes on your way home to Canada, after a vacation in Tunisia. To your surprise, you are detained by U.S. authorities and interrogated for…13 days. The Bush administration labels you a suspected member of Al Qaeda and sends you against your will to Syrian intelligence authorities renowned for torture. You are tortured, interrogated and detained in a tiny underground cell for nearly a year before the Syrian government releases you, stating they had found no connection to any criminal or terrorist organization or activity. An exhaustive investigation by the Canadian government finds you innocent of terrorism or other wrongdoing and that government apologizes for its minor role. Arar v. Ashcroft, No 06-4216-cv. Wouldn’t you expect American law to afford you due process and a judicial forum in which to hold those who committed these outrageous violations of your constitutional rights fully accountable?

That’s what Maher Arar, a 39-year old Canadian citizen, expected when he was subjected to these outrages. But as of this week, the doors of American justice have been slammed in Arar’s face.

On Monday, a sharply divided federal Court of Appeals, by a vote of 7 to 4, dismissed Arar’s case, concluding that it raised too many sensitive foreign policy and secrecy issues to permit any relief. Read more.

Author: CIA case evidence of abuse of power
By Jessica Bloch | Bangor Daily News

The news that an Italian court convicted on Wednesday a base chief for the CIA and 22 other Americans for the crime of rendition was evidence that the executive branch of the U.S. government has too much power, activist and author David Swanson told a small group of people Thursday afternoon at the University of Maine.

The crime for which the Americans were convicted surrounded the kidnapping of a Muslim cleric from the streets of Milan in 2003, according to a story Wednesday in The New York Times. The cleric was flown from an American air base in Italy to a base in Germany and then on to Egypt, where he asserts that he was tortured, the newspaper said.

“Kidnapping is still a crime in some places, but not [to U.S. government operatives]. Here it’s not a crime,” said Swanson, who spoke in the Bangor Room of the Memorial Union as part of UMaine’s Socialist and Marxist Studies Series. Swanson is on tour supporting his new book, “Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union.”

The incident in Italy may be one example that the executive branch of the U.S. government has too much power over other branches of the government and at times has overstepped Congress, he said. Read more.

Cynthia Papermaster's report on John Yoo follows:

First, a report on our Yoo action yesterday and YouTube of the rousing song "Tell John Yoo That Torture is a Crime." Our next Yoo protest is Wednesday, Nov. 18, 3 p.m. at the law school.

I'm beginning to get to know this guy John Yoo. Today Toby Blome and I went into his civil procedure class as soon as it ended. Toby beat her beautiful drum and I called him out for enabling torture. Yoo packed up his briefcase and as he was leaving we kept asking him when he was going to resign from teaching at UC. And I said you ARE going to be prosecuted, Mr. Yoo. He said "have a nice day." Toby followed him down the hall and up the stairs and he said to her "I'll never resign."

The Tortured Logic Continues
By Amy Goodman | Truthdig

“Extraordinary rendition” is White House-speak for kidnapping. Just ask Maher Arar. He’s a Canadian citizen who was “rendered” by the U.S. to Syria, where he was tortured for almost a year.

Just this week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York City, dismissed Arar’s case against the government officials (including FBI Director Robert Mueller, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and former Attorney General John Ashcroft) who allegedly conspired to have him kidnapped and tortured. Arar is safe now, recovering in Canada with his family. But the decision sends a signal to the Obama administration that there will be no judicial intervention to halt the cruel excesses of the Bush-era “Global War on Terror,” including extraordinary rendition, torture and the use of the “state secrets privilege” to hide these crimes.

Arar’s life-altering odyssey is one of the best known and best investigated of those victimized by U.S. extraordinary rendition. After vacationing with his family in Tunisia, Arar attempted to fly home to Canada. On Sept. 26, 2002, while changing planes at JFK Airport, Arar was pulled aside for questioning. He was fingerprinted and searched by the FBI and the New York Police Department. He asked for a lawyer and was told he had no rights. He was then taken to another location and subjected to two days of aggressive interrogations, with no access to phone, food or a lawyer. He was asked about his membership with various terrorist groups, about Osama bin Laden, Iraq, Palestine and more. Shackled, he was then moved to a maximum-security federal detention center in Brooklyn, strip-searched and threatened with deportation to Syria. Read more.

Italy Convicts 23 Americans for C.I.A. Renditions
Armando Spataro, a prosecutor shown in Milan on Wednesday, achieved the first convictions involving the American practice of rendition, a significant symbolic victory.
By Rachel Donadio | NY Times

In a landmark ruling, an Italian judge on Wednesday convicted a base chief for the Central Intelligence Agency and 22 other Americans, almost all C.I.A. operatives, of kidnapping a Muslim cleric from the streets of Milan in 2003.

The case was a huge symbolic victory for Italian prosecutors, who drew the first convictions involving the American practice of rendition, in which terrorism suspects are captured in one country and taken for questioning in another, often one more open to coercive interrogation techniques.

Critics of the Bush administration have long hailed the case as a repudiation of the tactics it used to fight terrorism. And the fact that Italy would actually convict intelligence agents of an allied country was seen as a bold move that could set a precedent in other cases. Read more.

A Review of the FBI's Involvement in and Observations of Detainee Interrogations in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, and Iraq (Revised)

Grab a beverage of your choice - it's 441 pages long.

EXCLUSIVE: Convicted CIA Spy Says "We Broke the Law"
Sabrina deSousa Says U.S. "Betrayed" Her and Others Found Guilty in Kidnapping of Muslim Cleric in Italy
By Matthew Cole, Avni Patel, and Brian Ross | ABC News

"Everything I did was approved back in Washington," she said. deSousa says she was on a ski trip on the actual day of the kidnapping....A State Department spokesman said the Obama administration was "disappointed" by the verdict.

One of the 23 Americans convicted today by an Italian court says the United States "broke the law" in the CIA kidnapping of a Muslim cleric Abu Omar in Milan in 2003.

"And we are paying for the mistakes right now, whoever authorized and approved this," said former CIA officer Sabrina deSousa in an interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC's World News with Charles Gibson.

DeSousa says the U.S. "abandoned and betrayed" her and the others who were put on trial for the kidnapping. She was sentenced in absentia to five years in prison.

Representative Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), a member of the House Intelligence Committee told ABC News that the trial was a disaster for CIA officers like DeSousa on the frontline.

"I think these people have been put out there. They've been hung out to dry. They're taking the fall potentially for a decision that was made by their superiors in our agencies. It's the wrong place to go." Read more.

US: Govt Lawyers Seek to Quash Rendition Lawsuit
By William Fisher | IPS

The long road to the proverbial day in court just got longer for five men who claim they were "disappeared" and tortured by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

The men, who say they were victims of the extraordinary rendition programme conducted during the administration of President George W. Bush, have been trying since 2007 to get their cases heard on the merits.

But it is now far from clear that the merits of these cases will be heard any time soon – if ever. The reason is that the Department of Justice – first through Bush administration lawyers, now through Barack Obama administration lawyers - has invoked the so-called "state secrets" privilege, claiming that a public trial would endanger U.S. national security.

The latest development in the case came last week, when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals set aside an earlier ruling by three of its own judges and said a majority of its judges had voted to refer the case to an 11-judge panel for a new hearing. The request to rehear the case, now scheduled for Dec. 15, came from the Obama administration.

That decision put on hold the earlier findings of the three-judge panel, which had reinstated the Mohamed suit in April. That 3-0 ruling rejected arguments by the Bush and Obama administrations that the case concerned secrets too sensitive to disclose in court. Read more.

CCR: Rendition Victims Can Get Justice in Italy and Canada But Not in U.S. | Press Release

November 4, 2009, New York – In response to news of an Italian court’s conviction of 23 U.S. officials for their role in the extraordinary rendition of a Muslim cleric unlawfully seized from the streets of Milan more than six years ago, Center for Constitutional Rights Executive Director Vincent Warren issued the statement below. On Monday, an 11-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit here in New York dismissed the case of CCR client and rendition victim, Canadian citizen Maher Arar.

Today the Italian legal system held 23 U.S. officials accountable for unlawfully grabbing a man, Abu Omar, off the streets of Milan and sending him to be tortured in Egypt. In 2006 and 2007, the Canadian government concluded an extensive public inquiry and apologized to our client Maher Arar for its role in his rendition by the U.S. to Syria for torture when he was unlawfully seized while changing planes at JFK on his way home to Canada. On Monday, our own courts threw out his case and told him and the world that our legal system was no place to bring his grievances.

Italian court convicts 23 Americans in CIA rendition case
By Craig Whitlock | Washington Post

An Italian court on Wednesday convicted 22 CIA operatives and a U.S. Air Force colonel of orchestrating the kidnapping of a Muslim cleric in Milan in 2003 and flying him to Egypt, where he said he was later tortured.

The judge in the case, Oscar Magi, said three other Americans, including the former Rome station chief for the CIA, were covered by diplomatic immunity.

The Americans were all tried in absentia. A Milan prosecutor said his office would seek to have them extradited from the United States, but a formal decision will be made later by the Italian Justice Ministry.

The case is the only instance in which CIA operatives have faced a criminal trial for the controversial tactic of extraordinary rendition, under which terrorism suspects are seized in one country and forcibly transported to another without judicial oversight. Read more.

U.S. settles suit with Muslims in post-9/11 abuse
By Christine Kearney | Reuters

The report said videotapes showed some detention center staff "misused strip searches and restraints to punish detainees and that officers improperly and illegally recorded detainees' meetings with their attorneys."

The lawsuit said some of the plaintiffs, upon entering the jail, had their faces smashed into a wall where a blood-smeared American flag T-shirt was taped and told "welcome to America," according to the lawsuit.

The U.S. government will pay $1.26 million to five Muslim men detained for months without charges after the September 11 attacks who sued for unlawful imprisonment and abuse, their lawyers said on Tuesday.

The men claimed they suffered inhumane and degrading treatment in a Brooklyn detention center, including solitary confinement, severe beatings, incessant verbal abuse and a blackout on communications with their families and attorneys.

Rachel Meeropol, a lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights who brought the case in Brooklyn federal court, said it was the largest settlement so far for claims of abuse in the United States following the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The Justice Department agreed to settle the suit, which was filed in 2002 after hundreds of immigrants were rounded up and held for months following the attacks, according to the CCR.

A spokesman for the U.S. Justice Department was not immediately available to comment on the settlement, in which the U.S. government admits no liability or fault. The five men were all eventually released after being cleared of any connection to terrorism but then deported. Read more.

Former OLC Director Not Opposed to Criminal Investigation of OLC Lawyers
By Daphne Eviatar | Washington Independent

Former Acting Assistant Attorney General Daniel Levin, who headed the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel under President George W. Bush after the departure of Jack Goldsmith, said this morning that “I personally am not opposed to criminal investigation of my conduct and others during the period in question.” Levin was referring to the period between 2002 and 2006, when the Office of Legal Counsel was producing memos justifying the use of “extreme” interrogation tactics on detainees in U.S. custody which many legal experts now say amounted to torture.

Levin’s remarks were made this morning at a conference at the Washington College of Law at American University addressing the ethical responsibilities of OLC lawyers and how they should be held accountable for authorizing abusive conduct that now appears to have been illegal. “Any government employee is appropriately subject to investigation of their conduct while they’re serving in government,” said Levin, who is now a partner at the law firm White & Case.

Later in the discussion, Levin also said that a truth commission that would investigate and reveal how the lawyers in his office reached their conclusions “would be useful.” Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has proposed such a commission, but so far apparently does not have majority support for the idea in Congress. Levin spoke on a panel of experts that included Georgetown Law Professor David Luban, Alliance for Justice president Nan Aron, and Newsweek columnist Stuart Taylor. Read more.

David Swanson is a U.S. author, blogger, and activist. He is the author of "Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union" and of the introduction to "The 35 Articles of Impeachment and the Case for Prosecuting George W. Bush," by Dennis Kucinich. He co-founded AfterDowningStreet.org and is the Washington Director of Democrats.com

http://www.davidswanson.org/

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/

http://www.democrats.com/

http://www.rationalradio.org/

Other Speakers at the Rational Radio Progress Forum:
Thom Hartmann
Cindy Sheehan
Jes Sprouse
Melissa Roddy
Nicole Torre
Steve Munson

and performances by

Code Red
Tunde Obazee
The Ackermans
David Rovics