An Open Letter to Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court

[ensho]

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/icc


Information and Evidence Unit
Office of the Prosecutor
Post Office Box 19519
2500 CM The Hague
The Netherlands
Fax: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]

July 15, 2008

Dear Chief Prosecutor,

Congratulations on your request for an arrest warrant for the president of Sudan. When the rule of law cannot be justly enforced within a nation, it must be enforced internationally. In that regard, I would like to recommend that you seek an arrest warrant for the president of my nation, the United States of America. I have read your letter of February 9, 2006, in which you decline to seek prosecution of George W. Bush, and I believe new evidence compels another review.

With all due respect for the difficulty of your work, the case you have brought against the president of Sudan has followed quite different standards than those applied in your refusal to prosecute the president of the United States. In fact, you have refused to consider prosecution of George W. Bush because the United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court. But Sudan is also not a member of the International Criminal Court. Were you to consider the evidence of international crimes in Iraq as it exists today, and to consider the crimes committed on behalf of the president of the United States by members of the United States military and mercenaries employed by the United States, I believe you would find a case for prosecution that met the standards you applied, and applied well and admirably, to the president of Sudan.

While there is good reason to expect multiple prosecutions of George W. Bush and of his Vice President and top advisors by individual nations, the rule of law would benefit were the International Criminal Court to take the lead. Should it fail to do so, the entire idea of international law will suffer seriously. In the time since your 2006 letter, Judge Baltasar Garzón of Spain, on March 20, 2008, has written these words in El Pais:

"Breaking every international law, and under the pretext of the war against terror, there has taken place since 2003 a devastating attack on the rule of law and against the very essence of the international community. In its path, institutions such as the United Nations were left in tatters, from which it has not yet recovered....We should look more deeply into the possible criminal responsibility of the people who are, or were, responsible for this war and see whether there is sufficient evidence to make them answer for it....There is enough of an argument in 650,000 deaths for this investigation and inquiry to start without more delay."
-snip-

read on, its a long letter
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[midnight]

1. The world is waiting for Justice.

[alfredo]

2. Let's do it here first, then turn him over to his victims.

[Cleita]

3. That would be the procedural way to do it except that

we aren't going to do it here because the people who can do it, Nancy Pelosi, et al, have been complicit in his crimes. So BushCo will have to be brought to justice outside of our legal jurisdiction it would appear.

[alfredo]

5. Any prosecutor with a victim in his jurisdiction can bring charges.

[Cleita]

6. Yes, but poor Vincent Bugliosi has been going around the country

knocking on prosecutorial doors and none have been opened. So I'm not hanging my hat on that one either.

[alfredo]

9. Give it time. You don't want to broadcast intentions until after bush

leaves office and is no longer protected by the office.

[EFerrari]

7. If the ICC opens a case it might shame Congress into action. n/t

[Cleita]

4. Well thought out and executed letter.

Please let us know if you get an answer.

[slipslidingaway]

8. Thanks for posting ! n/t

[leveymg]

10. I'll co-sign that.

Will even help serve the warrant.