Muammar Gaddafi war crimes files revealed

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: The Guardian/Observer

Thousands of documents that reveal in chilling detail orders from Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's senior generals to bombard and starve the people of Misrata have been gathered by war crimes investigators and are being kept at a secret location at the besieged Libyan port.

The documents, some of which the Observer has seen, will form damning evidence in any future war crimes trial of the Libyan leader at the International Criminal Court. The court's prosecutors are expected to travel to the city to view the documents once the daily bombardments have ceased.

One document shows the commanding general of government forces instructing his units to starve Misrata's population during the four-month siege. The order, from Youssef Ahmed Basheer Abu Hajar, states bluntly: "It is absolutely forbidden for supply cars, fuel and other services to enter the city of Misrata from all gates and checkpoints." Another document instructs army units to hunt down wounded rebel fighters, in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions.

Plans to bombard the city are also in the archive, say investigators, who also claim they have a message from Gaddafi relayed to the troops ordering that Misrata be obliterated and the "blue sea turned red" with the blood of the inhabitants. The documents are expected to form a crucial element of any trial against Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam and his intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi if, as is expected, ICC judges confirm indictments for war crimes and crimes against humanity that are demanded by its chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/18/muammar-gaddafi-war-crimes-files

[tabatha]

1. Same article

“From what we have here, the case is already proved,” Khalid Alwab, a Misrata war crimes investigator, told the Observer. “All the evidence is here. Signed and stamped.” The documents have yet to be revealed to the ICC, according to the 60-strong team of Libyan lawyers who brave daily shelling to collect evidence from the city. “We are ready to show them to the ICC,” said Alwab. “They are free to contact us.”

[joshcryer]

12. He's done.

[NashVegas]

2. I Also Heard He Personally Threw Babies Out of Incubators

[joshcryer]

9. The siege of Misrata is an uncontroversial fact.

Cutting the lights and water off of a city and then bombarding it for weeks on end is a crime against humanity. It could not have happened unless it was ordered by someone high up in Gaddafi's government.

[tabatha]

16. So all claims of atrocities by anyone else

are bogus because of the incubator story.

Syria is not killing protesters; Bahrain is not killing protesters, and doctors and nurses who treated them.

[Arctic Dave]

3. Can't he just investigate himself and say he is innocent like israel does?

I see a lot of similarity between the two.

[joshcryer]

10. Haven't you heard his proposals to the rebels? He thinks he should be elected now.

[sabrina 1]

4. US War Crimes revealed, over and over again and everyone

yawns. Surely the US has nothing to do with these charges? That would pretty much invalidate them. Britain also.

I think we ought to be dealing with our ongoing war crimes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and now Yemen. Drones ARE a war crime.

Hypocrisy, from the Colonialists in the West. Do they really think anyone takes their judgements of other nations seriously anymore?

[Shining Jack]

7. +1 n/t

[joshcryer]

11. Do you have evidence to suggest the war crimes investigators are corrupt?

If so then I wouldn't even want Bush to be handed over to them.

However, I believe the ICC, as new as it is, is doing everything it can to prosecute war crimes, and would champion the arrest of Bush and his gang.

[tabatha]

14. This information has not yet been handed to the ICC.

[joshcryer]

17. True.

My bad. Obviously though if the ICC gets this information and it pans out then they'd use it in their court, and their level of corruption is paramount.

[daleo]

20. To be fair then, Bush should be up for war crimes too. n/t

[atreides1]

18. If the ICC is doing everything it can

Then the investigations into US, Syrian, and Bahraini crimes against humanity should be next on the list?

Probably Syria, as for the US and Bahrain, it'll never happen.

Either all are equal under these laws, or these laws are nothing and those conducting the investigations are corrupt!!!

[tabatha]

19. There is only so much one can do at a time.

There is little access documented proof to many of these places.

One cannot bring a case to court without evidence.

"They represent a landmark in international justice because no significant war crimes trial in the short history of international courts has had access to documents directly implicating the lead players in the commission of war crimes."

"One reason why the trial of the former Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic, in The Hague took so long – four years – was the failure to find any documentation to back the charges that he masterminded nearly a decade of carnage, torture and ethnic cleansing. In the event, Milosevic died of heart failure before the trial could end.

The same problem bedevils the prosecution of ex-Liberian president Charles Taylor. There is no shortage of evidence of rape, murder, mutilation and enslavement in the plundering of diamonds from Sierra Leone, but again no documents that tie Taylor to the crimes"

[sabrina 1]

22. The ICC has no jurisdiction over the US. Bush pulled this

country out of it, before starting the first of the PNAC criminal wars. He knew they would be committing war crimes.

It is up to the US to prosecute war criminals and until they do that, they have no moral authority to judge any other country. That's the price you pay when you decide to 'move forward' from war crimes. No one cares much what you have to say about other people's crimes. As China recently pointed out whenm the US had the gall to cite them for human rights violations. They sent back a long list of US human rights violations.

[Bluebear]

5. Our leadership would say it's time to "move forward" from this. nt

[daleo]

6. It sounds like the U.S. siege of Fallujah. n/t

[joshcryer]

8. Indeed it was, Misrata was under siege for weeks, many Gaddafi defender said the reports were...

...false, but aid ships arrived and it became clear.

[Nossida]

13. Here we go again.

NATO is bombing Universities, schools for
Disabled Children, have killed 1 of Qaddafi's
Sons, and 2 Grandchildren, etc, etc, etc.

Of course, as usual, a bombed University is
considered 'collateral damage'. Especially
since the JDAM's are Laser guided, GPS wonder
weapons.

The Bankers will stop @ nothing to get Libya's
Wealth, and turn Libya into another Corporate
for Profit cesspool. Americans really need to
do a little research on the actual truth, but
we can be sure most will believe anything the
MSM spews. No matter how many Libyan Civilians
NATO kills in process.

That 'Days not Weeks' intervention in a Civil-war
has gone on for '90' days now.

[tabatha]

15. And the 13,000 killed by Gaddafi?

crickets?

And Btw, Berlusconi says that the claim of Gaddafi's son and grandchildren is a lie.

[EFerrari]

21. Earlier today you said 17,000. Did you lose a few folks?