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| Torture Survivors Ask UN: What’s the Point of Having Laws Against Torture if They Don’t Apply to the Powerful?

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Torture Survivors Ask the UN: What’s the Point of Having Laws Against Torture if They Don’t Apply to the Powerful? ~  Katherine Gallagher, Center for Constitutional Rights.

One thing brings these four men together. Hassan bin Attash, Sami el-Hajj, Muhammed Khan Tumani and Murat Kurnaz—they are all survivors of the systematic torture program the Bush administration authorized and carried out in locations including Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantánamo, and numerous prisons and CIA “black sites” around the world. Between them, they have been beaten, hung from walls or ceilings, deprived of sleep, food and water, and subjected to freezing temperatures and other forms of torture and abuse while held in U.S. custody. None was charged with a crime, two were detained while still minors, and one of them remains at Guantánamo.

This week, in a complaint filed with the United Nations Committee against Torture, they are asking one question: how can the man responsible for ordering these heinous crimes, openly enter a country that has pledged to prosecute all torturers regardless of their position and not face any legal action?

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the Canadian Centre for International Justice (CCIJ) filed the complaint on the men’s behalf.

The country in question is Canada, visited last year by former U.S. President George W. Bush during a paid speaking engagement in Surrey, British Columbia. Bush’s visit drew hundreds in protest, calling for his arrest, and it also provided bin Attash, el-Hajj, Tumani and Kurnaz the opportunity to call on the Canadian government to uphold its legal obligation under the U.N. Convention against Torture, and conduct a criminal investigation against Bush while he was on Canadian soil.

To this end, the four men, submitted a 69-page draft indictment that CCR and CCIJ had presented to Canada’s attorney general ahead of Bush’s arrival in support of their private prosecution. The submission included thousands of pages of evidence against Bush consisting of extensive reports and investigations conducted by multiple U.S. agencies and the U.N. The evidence is overwhelming, not to mention the fact that Bush has admitted, even, boasted of his crimes, saying “damn right” when asked if it was permissible to waterboard a detainee – a recognized act of torture.

Canada should have investigated these crimes. The responsibility to do so is embedded in its domestic criminal code that explicitly authorizes the government to prosecute torture occurring outside Canadian borders. There is no reason it cannot apply to former heads of state, and indeed, the Convention has been found to apply to such figures including Hissène Habré and Augusto Pinochet. A criminal investigation into the allegations was the lawful thing to do. It was also what Canada had agreed to do when it pledged its support to end impunity for torture by ratifying the Convention.

But Canada looked the other way. Not only did federal Attorney General Robert Nicholson refuse to investigate Bush, but the Attorney General of British Columbia swiftly intervened to shut down a private criminal prosecution submitted to a provincial court in his jurisdiction the morning of Bush’s visit.

Thanks to the Obama administration’s call to look only “forward” – even in the face of torture that demands a proper reckoning – and a court system in the U.S. that has readily closed its doors to torture survivors, the crimes of the Bush era are effectively beyond the reach of justice in the U.S. But the immunity – the impunity – granted to these criminals here should not follow them into other countries, particularly those that are signatories to international laws and treaties against torture.

If the Convention against Torture is to have any hope of fulfilling its mission of preventing torture, the committee must send countries like Canada a clear message: it is their legal obligation to ensure there is no safe haven for torturers and any action to the contrary makes these states effectively complicit in furthering impunity for some of the worst crimes of the past decade.

These four survivors are asking the U.N. to enforce its own convention, nothing more and nothing less. They call upon the U.N., unlike Canada, to unequivocally reject a worldview in which the powerful are exempt from rules, treaties and prohibitions against senseless acts of barbarity.  Will the U.N. hear their call?

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‎| Complaint Filed with UN Special Rapporteur alleges interference with Spanish judicial process: U.S. and Spanish Authorities attempted to stop cases seeking accountability of US Officials for Torture and Unlawful Killing!

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Complaint Filed with U.N. Special Rapporteur Alleges Interference with Spanish Judicial Process

U.S. and Spanish Authorities Attempted to Stop Cases Seeking Accountability of U.S. Officials for Torture and Unlawful Killing

press@ccrjustice.org

January 19, 2012, Madrid, New York, Berlin – Today, the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), filed a formal complaint to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Mrs. Gabriela Knaul. The groups submitted evidence from U.S.-Madrid embassy cables obtained through WikiLeaks that show that senior U.S. and Spanish officials sought to interfere with the Spanish judicial process in order to shield Americans from criminal prosecution for torture and unlawful killing.

“The WikiLeaks cables reveal that the United States will go to extreme measures to ensure that U.S. officials are not called before a court of law to answer the torture allegations against them,” said CCR Senior Attorney Katherine Gallagher. “Unfortunately, in Spain they found Spanish officials willing to work with them to keep justice from being done.  We hope the Special Rapporteur will examine the serious breaches of international law detailed in our complaint, and that those who suffered under the U.S. torture program can pursue justice, without interference, in Spain and elsewhere.”The complaint focuses on three criminal cases currently before the Spanish courts in which all potential defendants are U.S. citizens. The first is an investigation into the systematic use of torture at U.S.-run detention centers in Guantánamo and elsewhere initiated by Judge Baltasar Garzón, who oversaw the investigation until he was removed from office in 2010. The second case is the so-called “Bush Six case,” filed against former Bush administration lawyers for elaborating and authorizing a torture policy, and aiding and abetting the torture of detainees. The third case regards the unlawful killing of José Couso Permuy, a Spanish cameraman killed in Baghdad in 2003 as a result of U.S. tank fire at his hotel.
The U.S. cables reveal the intensive efforts undertaken by U.S. officials, through meetings, phone calls and strong statements about the possible negative impact of these cases on U.S.-Spanish relations, in coordination with certain Spanish officials, to influence the outcome of ongoing criminal investigations. As the former U.S. Ambassador to Spain, Eduardo Aguirre, explains in one cable: “While we are careful to show our respect for the tragic death of [José] Couso and for the independence of the Spanish judicial system, behind the scenes we have fought tooth and nail to make the charges disappear.”
An April 17, 2009 embassy cable reveals that U.S. officials conducted “intensive outreach” in order to influence Spanish Attorney General Conde Pumpido on the Bush Six case. According to the cable, the day after U.S. officials warned that continued proceedings would have an “enormous impact” on the U.S.-Spain relationship, Conde Pumpido “publicly stated that prosecutors will‘undoubtedly’ not support [the] criminal complaint.”  Similarly, after Judge Garzón initiated a criminal investigation into the torture of four former detainees, in a May 5, 2009 cable, Chief Prosecutor Zaragoza tells U.S. embassy officials that “he will also fight [Judge] Garzón’s latest move.”
At this meeting, Zaragoza outlined the way he could “embarrass” Judge Garzón into dropping his investigation into the U.S. torture program and says that he “has a strategy to force [Garzón’s] hand.”   Cables related to theCouso case reveal interventions by both Spanish and American officials in an effort to have the criminal investigation closed: the U.S. ambassador’s account of having “fought tooth and nail to make the charges disappear” is met with a similar account by the Spanish Vice President de la Vega, who expressed appreciation for the “excellent cooperation” between U.S. officials and the Spanish attorney general “in helping bring the case to a conclusion.”
ECCHR Secretary General Wolfgang Kaleck said, “The attacks on the Spanish judiciary show the urgent need for trials in third countries, since the U.S. is shielding alleged perpetrators and does not prosecute them in domestic courts.”
Invoking the fundamental principle of the right to an independent and impartial judiciary, CCR and ECCHR stress that these actions by the United States require the attention of the Special Rapporteur in part because they are not isolated. “Rather,” reads the complaint, “previous interventions in Belgium, Germany, and Italy suggest that they are demonstrative of a systematic pattern and practice of abuse aimed at protecting U.S. interests from adverse judicial findings abroad at the expense of the independence and impartiality of the judiciary in the countries in which they occur… Breaches of judicial independence foster a culture of impunity that is incompatible with international and domestic obligations to prosecute authors of human rights violations.”
CCR and ECCHR request that the U.N. Special Rapporteur investigate the cable revelations, demand that the U.S. and Spanish governments refrain from further obstructing or interfering with these cases, and ensure that the cases are resolved according to Spanish law and binding international law, independent of political considerations. The complaint, with anannex of the relevant cables, is available here.
The filing of the complaint comes on the same day that CCR and ECCHR joined with other international human rights groups in issuing a statement in support of Judge Baltasar Garzón, who will go to trial on January 24 in Madrid for charges stemming from his investigation into alleged crimes against humanity arising from the disappearance, torture and execution of nearly 115,000 people during the Spanish Civil war and the subsequent Franco regime. CCR and ECCHR have previously joined a complaint to the Special Rapporteur, which sought an investigation into the case against Garzón and whether it constitutes an improper interference with the judiciary.
For more information and filings related to the case, visit the Spanish Case pages on the Center for Constitutional Rights andECCHR websites.
The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. CCR has led the legal battle over Guantánamo for the last 10 years – representing clients in two United States Supreme Court cases and organizing and coordinating hundreds of pro bono lawyers across the country to represent the men at Guantánamo. CCR has also filed cases against Donald Rumsfeld in Germany and France, and released a Bush Torture Indictment, ready to be tailored to the specific laws of any of the 147 signatory countries to the Convention Against Torture where he may travel. Visitwww.ccrjustice.org; follow @theCCR.

The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.