US Torture Victim Takes Case to International Human Rights Tribunal

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Activist Post

The American Civil Liberties Union and Yale Law School’s Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic today filed a petition against the United States with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IAHCR) for the unlawful detention and torture of José Padilla, a U.S. citizen, whom the United States detained and interrogated for four years.

The petition was filed by Padilla’s mother, Estela Lebron, on her own and on her son’s behalf. Padilla and Lebron had previously filed federal lawsuits – since dismissed – against current and former government officials for their roles in Padilla’s torture and other abuse.

The petition is an international complaint asking the IACHR, which is an independent human rights body of the Organization of American States, to conduct a full investigation into the human rights violations suffered by Padilla; to find that his mistreatment violated the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man; and to recommend that the United States publicly acknowledge the violations and apologize for its unlawful conduct.

“The U.S. justice system denied a day in court to a U.S. citizen who was arrested and then tortured on U.S. soil by his own government," said Steven Watt, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Human Rights Program. “The U.S. has historically been a leader in ensuring access to justice for human rights violations around the world, but it has effectively closed the courtroom door to all victims and survivors of the Bush administration’s torture regime. Denied redress in U.S. courts, torture survivors like Padilla are now left with no choice but to turn to international justice.”

Supreme Court nixes suit against ex-attorney general

Former US Attorney General John Ashcroft
© AFP/Getty Images/File Mark Wilson

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Supreme Court has ruled that former attorney general John Ashcroft cannot be held responsible for police and judicial excesses committed in the period after the September 11 attacks.

In a unanimous decision on Monday, the court overturned an appeals court decision authorizing a lawsuit brought against Ashcroft by Abdullah Al-Kidd, an American convert to Islam.

Al-Kidd was detained in March 2003 and held without charges as a "material witness," a formulation widely used after the 2001 attacks on the United States to ensure suspects were available to testify in terrorism cases.

George W. Bush can’t fight for freedom and authorise torture

If the West’s aim is to spread the rule of law, it cannot be achieved by vile means

Boris Johnson
Telegraph

It is not yet clear whether George W Bush is planning to cross the Atlantic to flog us his memoirs, but if I were his PR people I would urge caution. As book tours go, this one would be an absolute corker. It is not just that every European capital would be brought to a standstill, as book-signings turned into anti-war riots. The real trouble — from the Bush point of view — is that he might never see Texas again.

One moment he might be holding forth to a great perspiring tent at Hay-on-Wye. The next moment, click, some embarrassed member of the Welsh constabulary could walk on stage, place some handcuffs on the former leader of the Free World, and take him away to be charged. Of course, we are told this scenario is unlikely. Dubya is the former leader of a friendly power, with whom this country is determined to have good relations. But that is what torture-authorising Augusto Pinochet thought. And unlike Pinochet, Mr Bush is making no bones about what he has done.

Unless the 43rd president of the United States has been grievously misrepresented, he has admitted to authorising and sponsoring the use of torture. Asked whether he approved of “waterboarding” in three specific cases, he told his interviewer that “damn right” he did, and that this practice had saved lives in America and Britain. It is hard to overstate the enormity of this admission.

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George W. Bush: Torturer-in-Chief

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David Cole
The Nation

In an uncoerced confession in his new memoir, Decision Points, former President George W. Bush proudly admits that he personally signed off on the waterboarding of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in 2003. Former Vice President Dick Cheney made the same admission in a televised interview shortly before he left office. In one sense, this is nothing new. It had long been reported that the CIA's use of what the Bush administration euphemistically called "enhanced interrogation techniques" had been approved at the highest levels of the administration. But now both Bush and Cheney have publicly admitted to specifically signing off on the CIA's torture tactics. Their direct personal admissions now seal the case against them.

What case, you might ask? There is in fact no criminal or civil case against the former president or vice president for these actions. And both men no doubt felt comfortable admitting they had authorized what the world recognizes as torture because they believe they are politically immune from being held accountable. Even before the midterm elections, Barack Obama had insisted that he wanted only to look forward, not backward. With a strengthened Republican Party after the elections, it is even less likely that Bush or Cheney will be held accountable by the Obama administration. On November 9 the Justice Department announced that no criminal charges would be brought against the CIA agents who destroyed videotapes of the torture interrogations; that part of the cover-up, it seems, has succeeded.

But Bush and Cheney are not immune. In fact, the United States is legally obligated by the Convention Against Torture, a treaty we helped draft, and have signed and ratified, to investigate any credible allegations of torture by a person within US jurisdiction. And if the United States does not take action, other nations are authorized to do so, under the principle of "universal jurisdiction," which treats torture as so heinous that its perpetrators can be investigated and prosecuted by any country if their own country fails to take corrective action.

Chile's former President Augusto Pinochet found this out the hard way. After flying to London for medical treatment, he was served with an arrest warrant issued by a Spanish magistrate investigating him for, among other things, authorizing torture. Pinochet argued that he was immune from such action as a former head of state, but Britain's highest court rejected that plea, and Pinochet was placed under arrest. He was eventually sent back to Chile on medical grounds, but he spent the last years of his life there fighting criminal charges arising out of his acts as president.

Investigating and arresting the former president of Chile is one thing. Investigating and arresting the former president and vice president of the United States would be another matter altogether. No doubt Bush was relying on just that calculation in admitting his guilt in his memoir. And it may be that Bush and Cheney are deliberately admitting their crime at a time when they know they will not be prosecuted, in hopes of putting the issue behind them and providing cover to those below them who also approved of the crime. How can we prosecute anyone lower down when the president and vice president have admitted to giving their approval?

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