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bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
=== News Update ===
The execution of the President
Statement by Abdul Ilah Albayaty, Ian Douglas, Hana Albayaty, Dirk
Adriaensens, Inge Van De Merlen
The execution of President Saddam Hussein would be a grave war crime
imputable under international law
The US-orchestrated tribunal that sentenced President Saddam Hussein has
no legal standing
The imminent execution of Iraq’s lawful president is testimony to the
gutting of international law by the Bush administration and its criminal
partners
December 30, 2006
President Saddam Hussein is a prisoner of war with protected status
under international law.[i]Further, he is the lawful president of the
Republic of Iraq. He cannot be executed legally by the US occupation.
Under the Interim Constitution of Iraq of 1990 — which remains in force
despite the illegal imposition of a permanent Iraqi constitution written
by the United States — President Saddam Hussein, like heads of state
worldwide, including in the US and Europe, is afforded sovereign
immunity to prosecution.[ii]
That the US invaded Iraq illegally and established an illegal political
process and a quisling Iraqi government only exacerbates the violation
of President Saddam Hussein’s personal and sovereign rights and the
affront to the whole of Iraq. His imminent execution is an attempt to
establish, de facto, a global state of exception to law. Force cannot
make just what law denies.
The US-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq was illegal and cannot be
made legal by the execution of Iraq’s lawful president. The occupation
is illegal and cannot survive by authoring new atrocities.
This mockery of law
The Iraqi Higher Criminal Court that passed a death sentence on
President Saddam Hussein is a farce. Not only is it grounded on
illegality (occupying powers under international law are expressly
prohibited from changing the judicial structures of occupied states
[iii]); the trial itself stands distinguished in legal history by its
sheer number of due process and international standard of fairness
violations.[iv]
These violations have included, often with systematic effect: American
imposed censorship of court proceedings; withholding evidence from the
defence; forcible ejection from court of defence lawyers and the placing
of defence lawyers under house arrest; denial of defence counsel access
to defendants; blatant lack of impartiality of court judges; overt
political interference in the selection of court officials and the
prejudicing of the trial and trial outcome by statements made by
invested political figures — including George W Bush — affirming
progress towards, or demanding, execution; the replacement of four of
the five originally selected court judges; lack of equality of arms
between the prosecution and the defence; refusals to accept key defence
submissions, especially motions challenging the competence and legality
of the court; violations of key fair trial principles and standards and
international humanitarian law[v]; violation of Iraqi law[vi];
intimidation of witnesses; failure to ensure the security of the defence
leading to the murder of three defence lawyers.
Created by Paul Bremer, the Iraqi Higher Criminal Court was never
anything but a US-orchestrated puppet court.[vii]The imposition of a
death sentence after an unfair trial stands in direct violation of
international law.[viii]
The truth about this court
>From day one, this court has been nothing but a smokescreen: an attempt
to establish a veneer of legality to an illegal invasion of a sovereign
state. From day one, the final conclusion — the illegal execution of
Iraq’s lawful president — has been a fait accompli. The only question
has been when.
As 2006 ends, the United States is desperate. Defeated militarily on the
ground, long defeated politically and morally, the occupation is
preparing to open the year 2007 with a barrage of atrocities, including
the open murder of Iraq’s lawful president. This, like all other US-
authored atrocities in Iraq, will not allow the US and its criminal
partners to impose on Iraq a future that is contrary to the fundamental
interests of the Iraqi people.
The imminent execution of President Saddam Hussein is a challenge to the
world. Its occurrence would mark a watershed in the imposition by force
of a global state of exception to law and to international standards of
justice and due process.
States are obliged to protect international law and oppose acts that
undermine it.[ix]International law is the arbiter and final guarantor of
world peace. When states cannot or fail to act to protect it, or when
they act resolutely to destroy it, it is the duty of citizens everywhere
to oppose global tyranny by direct action.
Urgent action demands
We demand that legal institutions worldwide, governmental and non-
governmental, act now to prevent the illegal execution of President
Saddam Hussein.
We demand that all states and the United Nations speak up immediately
and oppose and prevent the illegal execution of President Saddam
Hussein.
We demand an immediate meeting of the UN Security Council in which must
be affirmed the legal basis governing international relations and in
particular the fundamentaljus cogens norms of international humanitarian
law.
We call upon the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to defend its
November 2006 conclusion that the detention of President Saddam Hussein
is illegal and act to prevent his illegal execution.
We invoke the mandate afforded to the UN Special Rapporteur on
Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Execution to intervene to prevent
the illegal execution of President Saddam Hussein.
We call upon the Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and
Lawyers to defend his March 2006 conclusion that the Iraqi Higher
Criminal Court is questionable, has limited competence and has given
rise to serious breaches of international human rights principles and
standards. We call upon the rapporteur to intervene to prevent the
illegal execution of President Saddam Hussein — a further insult to
justice.
We demand that the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights personally
intervene to prevent this grave war crime from occurring. No one in
authority can claim ignorance as to its imminence.
We affirm that international law is the bequest of generations and an
expression of the development of human civilization and that people
worldwide, individually and in groups, have a stake in protecting it,
and the world peace that depends on it.
We call upon citizens and individuals everywhere to stand up in defence
of international law and Iraqi sovereignty and act to prevent the
execution of Iraq’s legal president.
The execution of Saddam Hussein would not only be a war crime against
one individual and state. It would lend an illusion of legality to
illegal acts — both the execution of a lawful president and the invasion
and destruction of Iraq. It would be nothing less than a declaration of
the death of international law, slain by this criminal Bush
administration and its collaborators.
If the execution of President Saddam Hussein will not lead to an
international or global war, it sows the seeds, in its overt illegality,
and in conjunction with Washington’s exclusion of international law from
international relations, for precisely this outcome.
Abdul Ilah Albayaty (BRussells Tribunal Advisory Committee)
Ian Douglas (BRussells Tribunal Advisory Committee)
Hana Albayaty (BRussells Tribunal Executive Committee)
Dirk Adriaensens (BRussells Tribunal Executive Committee)
Inge Van De Merlen (BRussells Tribunal Executive Committee)
[i] In January 2004 the US government officially recognized President
Saddam Hussein’s prisoner of war status. See Article 3The Hague IV
Regulations, 1907: "The armed forces of the belligerent parties may
consist of combatants and non-combatants. In the case of capture by the
enemy, both have a right to be treated as prisoners of war." The Third
Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, 1949,
provides for the human rights to security of person, privacy, respect,
humane treatment, and fair trial. Under international law, no special
arrangements can be constituted that adversely affect the rights of
persons. See Article 7 of The Fourth Geneva ConventionRelative to the
Protection of Civilian Persons in the Time of War, 1949.
[ii] See Article 40 of the Interim Constitution of Iraq (1990).
[iii] See Articles 43 and 55 of The Hague IV Regulations on Laws and
Customs of War on Land, 1907; Articles 54 and 64 of The Fourth Geneva
ConventionRelative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in the Time of
War, 1949.
[iv] For a full account of the illegality of the Iraqi Higher Criminal
Court and the violations of international fair trial principles and
standards witnessed during its proceedings see Iraqi Special Tribunal: A
Corruption of Justice by Ramsey Clark and Curtis Doebbler (13 September
2006).
[v] Articles 70 and 65 of The Fourth Geneva ConventionRelative to the
Protection of Civilian Persons in the Time of War, 1949; Article 14 of
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Article 14 of
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights requires that
courts be established under preexisting law.
[vi] The Iraqi Higher Criminal Court is inconsistent with Iraqi law
because it violates basic principles of international human rights law
that are binding on Iraqi authorities according to Article 44 of
theInterim Constitution of Iraq of 1990. Further, the court was formed
in violation of processes set forth in Section IV, Articles 60 and 61 of
the Interim Constitution and the Iraqi Law on Judicial Organization, the
latter illegally annulled by Coalition Provisional Authority Order No 15
of 23 June 2003.
[vii] That the occupying power, through the Coalition Provisional
Authority, created the Iraqi Higher Criminal Court (formerly the Iraqi
Special Tribunal) is established by the fact that Order No 48,
containing the statute of the court, had to be signed by Coalition
Provisional Authority Administrator L Paul Bremer before it could enter
into force.
[viii] See Article 6, paragraph 2, of the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights that prohibits imposition of the death
penalty when it does not apply "in accordance with the law in force at
the time of the commission of the crime." The retroactive application of
the death penalty violates the Iraqi Penal Code, which states in Article
1: "no act or omission shall be penalized except in accordance with a
legislative provision under which the said act or omission is regarded
as a criminal offense at the time of its occurrence." This arbitrary
application of the death penalty is also a violation of the right to
life in Article 6 of the International Covenant of Civil and Political
Rights. See also Articles 2, 4 and 5 of the UN Safeguards Guaranteeing
Protection of the Rights of Those Facing the Death Penalty.
[ix] Article 42(2) of the United Nations International Law Commission’s
Draft Articles on State Responsibility, representing the rule of
customary international law, prevents states from benefiting from their
own illegal acts: "No State shall recognize as lawful a situation
created by aserious breach …" (emphasis added); Section III(e), UN
General Assembly Resolution 36/103 of 14 December 1962, "Declaration on
the Inadmissibility of Intervention and Interference in the Internal
Affairs of States".
source:
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m29392&hd=&size=1&l=e
===
-muslim voice-
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