Aegis calls on Government to adopt Parliament’s recommendations and completely close the ‘impunity gap’ for genocide suspects in UK

In a report released today, the Parliamentary Joint Select Committee on Human Rights says inconsistencies in the way the UK applies international law have created an “impunity gap” for perpetrators of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. It commends the Government's recent decision to amend to legislation to partially address the problem, but calls for it to close remaining loopholes in the law and to re-establish a specialist war crimes unit to investigate people in the UK who are suspected of such offences.

Under the law as it stands, no-one in the UK can be prosecuted for war crimes in internal armed conflicts, genocide or crimes against humanity committed before 2001. Even if people here are suspected of committing such offences since 2001, they can only be prosecuted if legally resident here, not merely if they are present in the country (for eg., visiting on a student or business visa).

The Aegis Trust worked with MPs and Lord Carlile QC, Lord Falconer QC and Baroness D’Souza to prepare amendments to the Coroners and Criminal Justice Bill which would have closed these loopholes. Tabled in the House of Lords, they triggered the Government’s decision last month to extend jurisdiction of UK courts to prosecute international crimes as far back as 1991.

As the Committee points out, however, this only takes jurisdiction back to the date on which Crimes Against Humanity became recognised as crimes in international law. It argues for jurisdiction on genocide and war crimes in internal armed conflicts to be extended back to the dates on which they were recognised in international law (e.g. 1948 for genocide).

The Committee also supports Aegis’ call for replacement of the ‘residence’ test with a simple ‘presence’ test, so that anyone present on UK soil could be subject to jurisdiction on international crimes, not only those who are legally resident. This is the test used by other common law countries such as Canada, the US, New Zealand, South Africa.

“The Aegis Trust is delighted that the Joint Committee on Human Rights has adopted all of our recommendations for strengthening UK law in this area,” says Aegis’ Head of Campaigns Nick Donovan, whose evidence is quoted in the Committee’s report. “We too commend the Government for the bold progress made last month, and call on it to finish the job by closing remaining legal loopholes which benefit suspected war criminals in the UK.”

In June Aegis published a report that brought together, for the first time, details of people entering the UK who are suspected of international crimes. The report – 'Suspected war criminals and genocidaires in the UK: Proposals to strengthen UK law' – examines 18 cases, including those of suspected genocidaires from Rwanda, alleged torturers from Zimbabwe, Iraq, Liberia and the Congo, and alleged war criminals from Afghanistan, Sudan, Sierra Leone and Sri Lanka. They include such people as a Lieutenant Colonel from KHAD, the Soviet-era Afghan government’s secret police; an alleged Tamil Tiger assassination hit squad driver, and a member of Sierra Leone’s ‘Mosquito’ rebel group, notorious for murder, rape, looting, burning, sexual slavery and forced amputations.

The Joint Committee’s report comes at a time when the workload of the UK Border Agency’s war crimes team is increasing. Several weeks ago, the Government revealed that in the first six months of 2009, recommendations of immigration status refusal following investigation were up four-fold on the preceding four years. Since 2004, there have been 421 cases where immigration action was recommended and 30 cases where the matter was referred was made to the police. How many of these people are currently at large in the UK is unclear.

Iraq Inquiry: A farce in teh making

The Enquiry into the War in Iraq has officially started today. What a waste of time, money and effort this could end up being.

There is no way that the government will have put itself in a position where it could be held accountable for breaking international law by violating the territorial sovereignty of a fully recognised UN member state.

There is no way that it will allow itself to be held accountable for war crimes including the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians, the use of white phosphorous on civilian targets, torture, detention without trial etc.

Those who have directly caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilian and military lives and £billions in damage to property and infrastructure not to mention commerce and cultural heritage will not suffer for their abuse of power and lies told to initiate an unnecessary act of aggressive war and regime change without international and UN backing or agreement.

The present government will not even be in power when the enquiry concludes and those who do come under its scrutiny for any wrong doing will presumably be protected from any of its findings against them because they enjoy the privilege of constitutionally enshrined ministerial immunity.

Sir John Chilcot made a statement that sounds like the committee is going to be thorough, all encompassing and all appeasing yet tough and direct but I wonder how realistic that will be to actually achieve. He has also confirmed that some of the hearing will be in private for the sake of national security or the need for candour and one has to wonder how much of this will include any evidence from notorious Tony Blair.

If Blair is allowed to give all, most or any of his evidence behind closed doors then the enquiry in my opinion will fail in everything it hopes to achieve. Given the cost alone of this exercise this possibility cannot be allowed to happen and I hope that Sir John is not too ensconced within in the establishment to allow a travesty of this magnitude to happen in his name.

This is not the Iraq inquiry the nation wanted to see

William Hague has warned that the inquiry into the Iraq War announced today by Sir John Chilcot will not be the “the inquiry that the nation wanted to see”.

The Shadow Foreign Secretary condemned the “worrying new caveat” that sessions will be held in private not just when national security is concerned but also when there is a need for candour.

And he stressed, “If there are difficult truths to be told they should be told in the light of day, not behind closed doors. It would be unacceptable if sessions are held in private simply because Ministers or former Ministers, including Tony Blair, want to avoid embarrassment.”

William also said it was “disappointing” that the membership of the Inquiry still lacks cabinet or military experience:

“Drawing on outside military experts is not the same as having a heavyweight Committee member who has high level military experience. And it still remains the case that no one on the Inquiry has had experience of cabinet.”

He stressed, “Despite Sir John’s best efforts this is still not the Inquiry that the nation wanted to see, and it is a classic illustration of Gordon Brown’s lack of openness in Government that it has been announced too late to report before the General Election.”

Blair and Brown Must Not be Allowed to Escape Spotlight of Iraq Inquiry

Commenting on Sir John Chilcot’s announcement on the terms of reference for the Iraq war inquiry, Nick Clegg, Leader of the Liberal Democrats said:

“It is essential that this inquiry has the teeth it needs to get the job done. The Government must not be able to interfere to keep Blair and Brown out of the spotlight for the sake of political convenience in the run-up to an election. Tony Blair ordered this disastrous war and Gordon Brown signed the cheques - without public appearances from them this inquiry will be seen as a whitewash.

The inquiry must have access to high level legal advice, in particular a counsel to assist them in cross-questioning witnesses. This is important to ensure that as gifted a communicator as Blair is not allowed to slip off the hook. It is very disappointing that the chances of an interim report have been described as ‘unlikely’ - there is no reason that such a report could not be published before the election.

Sir John’s assurance that evidence will be held in public ‘wherever possible’ is welcome. But where evidence is given in private, a genuine national security interest must be proven in each case. There is a strong case for televising hearings so the public can see that proceedings are as open as possible.”

BLAIR AND BROWN MUST GIVE EVIDENCE IN PUBLIC

IRAQ INQUIRY WILL BE JUDGED ON ANSWERS AND LESSONS LEARNED

Commenting as the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war gets underway, SNP Westminster leader Angus Robertson MP said the investigation would be judged on the answers that it provided and said the former and current prime ministers must give evidence in public.

The SNP have led demands for an inquiry into the Iraq war, and secured the first substantive debate at Westminster in October 2006 – at that time the vote calling for an inquiry was narrowly lost by just 25 votes – with 12 Labour rebels. It was backed by all Tories and Liberal Democrats.

Mr Robertson said:

“This inquiry will be judged on the answers that it provides and the lessons that are learned.

“Sir John Chilcot has a mountain to climb if he is to convince people that this an open and independent inquiry and not some establishment stitch-up with Downing Street pulling the strings.

“The whole point of an inquiry is to get to the truth about the Iraq war, and the conduct and conclusions of Sir John’s investigation must leave no doubt in peoples minds or questions unanswered. It is essential that both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown give their evidence to this inquiry in public.

“By every measurement the Iraq war has been the biggest foreign policy disaster in modern times, and those responsible for it have never answered the most fundamental questions about why we were led into this war.

“The claim that the war was about weapons of mass destruction was a blatant lie, a mere cover story unsupported by the facts, which has cost the lives of thousands of civilians and hundreds of our brave soldiers.”

Statement by Sir John Chilcot, chairman of the Iraq Inquiry, at a news conference to launch the inquiry on Thursday 30 July 2009 at the QEII Conferenc

Statement by Sir John Chilcot, chairman of the Iraq Inquiry, at a news conference to launch the inquiry on Thursday 30 July 2009 at the QEII Conference Centre, London.

'Good morning. My name is Sir John Chilcot and I am the chairman of the Iraq Inquiry. Seated on my right are the other members of the Inquiry team – Sir Lawrence Freedman, Sir Martin Gilbert, Sir Roderic Lyne and Baroness Usha Prashar.

What I’d like to do today is explain what we think our task is and how we intend to approach it. Our terms of reference are very broad, but the essential points, as set out by the Prime Minister and agreed by the House of Commons, are that this is an Inquiry by a committee of Privy Counsellors. It will consider the period from the summer of 2001 to the end of July 2009, embracing the run-up to the conflict in Iraq, the military action and its aftermath. We will therefore be considering the UK’s involvement in Iraq, including the way decisions were made and actions taken, to establish, as accurately as possible, what happened and to identify the lessons that can be learned. Those lessons will help ensure that, if we face similar situations in future, the government of the day is best equipped to respond to those situations in the most effective manner in the best interests of the country.

The Inquiry will have access to all the information held by the Government and may ask any British citizen to appear before it. In the Prime Minister’s words, “no British document and no British witness will be beyond the scope of the inquiry.”

The potential scope of the Inquiry is considerable. Previous inquiries have tended to focus on a specific event within a relatively limited period. We have been asked to examine a range of decisions and actions over a period of eight years. There are differing views about what happened during that period, and why, which we will need to address.

The Committee was asked to start work as soon as possible after the end of July. We have already started. We have made our first requests for Government documents. We will have a huge amount of reading to do over the next few weeks to help us to identify the critical issues on which to focus.
During this initial phase the Inquiry team will engage expert specialist advisers – on international law, military operations and on reconstruction – to help us interpret the evidence.

One of our first priorities is to hear from the families of those who died during the conflict and others who were seriously affected, including veterans groups. We want to know what they think the Inquiry’s priorities should be. I’ve already written to many of the families explaining what we’re doing. We will be making arrangements to offer meetings to those who want them as soon as practicable. We will leave it to them to decide whether these discussions are held in public or private - or indeed whether they wish to talk to us at all. We want to be sensitive to, and respect, their wishes.

We come to this task with open minds and a commitment to review the evidence objectively. Each member of the committee is independent and non-partisan. We are determined to be thorough, rigorous, fair and frank to enable us to form impartial and evidence-based judgements on all aspects of the issues, including the arguments about the legality of the conflict. We will be thorough and rigorous in our analysis of the evidence, taking advice, as I have said, from a range of specialist experts.

In order to be fair to, and to get the most from, witnesses, we will adopt an inquisitorial approach to our task, taking evidence direct from witnesses rather than conducting our business through lawyers. The Inquiry is not a court of law and nobody is on trial. But I want to make something absolutely clear. This Committee will not shy away from making criticism. If we find that mistakes were made, that there were issues which could have been dealt with better, we will say so frankly.

We are all committed to ensuring that our proceedings are as open as possible because we recognise that is one of the ways in which the public can have confidence in the integrity and independence of the inquiry process.
In that spirit, we want to ensure that as many people as possible have access to what is happening in the public hearings, either direct or through the media. That includes the possibility of public hearings being televised and live streaming on the internet. We will need to decide on the detailed arrangements nearer the time but we are committed to openness.

We will have a website for the public to access transcripts of hearings and factual and other background material, as well as details on how to contact us if they think they have information relevant to our investigations.

I have already made clear that I consider that as much as possible of the Inquiry’s hearings should be in public. But if the Inquiry is to succeed in getting to the heart of what happened and what lessons need to be learned for the future, we recognise that some evidence sessions will need to be private. Sometimes that will be consistent with the need to protect national security, sometimes to ensure complete candour and openness from witnesses. But I repeat: the hearings will be held in public wherever possible.

There will be speculation about whom we call as witnesses. The people we invite to give evidence will be those we judge, having considered the material before us, are best placed to supply the information we need to conduct our task thoroughly. That will, of course, include the former Prime Minister and other senior figures involved in decision-taking. But not all of the witnesses will be household names. Some may be junior officials with vital evidence about the ways their managers and leaders acted.

We intend to complete our task as quickly as possible, but we are also determined to be thorough. We cannot know, at this stage, how long the Inquiry will take until we have read the background material and heard the evidence. If, as we work through the evidence, we consider that it would be helpful to publish an interim report, we will do so. But it is more likely, given the purpose of our inquiry – identifying lessons for the way government acts and takes decisions in the future – that our report will be a single one at the end of the Committee’s deliberations. That report will be published, and then debated, in Parliament.

We recognise that our task – of identifying lessons for the future – is a difficult and important one. It is one which we all take extremely seriously. Our promise to you today is that we will approach the task in the thorough, rigorous, fair and frank way I have outlined, with a shared commitment both to openness and to completing our work as quickly as the task allows.'

Government announcement due on war crimes loopholes in UK law, following five-fold increase in war crimes investigations by UK Border Agency

In response to an amendment to the Coroners and Justice Bill tabled by Lord Carlile, the British Government is expected to announce in the House of Lords on Tuesday what if any action it intends to take to close loopholes in UK law that in many circumstances currently prevent prosecution for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

This comes in the wake of a massive jump in activity by the war crimes team of the UK Border Agency over the past six months. The Government last week revealed that cases screened each month for possible involvement in war crimes are up five-fold, recommendations of immigration status refusal following investigation are up four-fold, and referrals of cases to the police each month have more than doubled.

In the period April 2004 to December 2008, 1863 cases were screened; in 300, immigration action was recommended; 22 were referred to the police. Since December, another 1006 have been screened, immigration action recommended in a further 121 cases, and 8 more suspects have been referred to the police.

As the law stands, no-one in the UK can be prosecuted for genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes committed in most circumstances before 2001. Even if people here are suspected of committing such offences since 2001, they can only be prosecuted if legally resident here, not merely if they are present in the country (for eg., visiting on a student or business visa).

"Some suspects can’t be deported, extradited or prosecuted. Despite the best intentions of the Government, this is getting close to the definition of a safe haven. Tomorrow the Government has an opportunity to act decisively to close the legal loopholes which prevent prosecution of war criminals here," says Nick Donovan, Head of Campaigns for the Aegis Trust and editor of the recent report, Suspected war criminals and genocidaires in the UK: Proposals to strengthen UK law.