Will Handing Seif al-Islam to ICC Stop the Fighting in Libya?

November 16, 2014

Amidst the general chaos in Libya, new fighting rages between different factions in Dernah, Al Qaeda central in the east of Libya. As the BBC reported on November 11, The "Islamic State" (ISIS, taken globally) is trying to gain control there, and might be up against regular Al Qaeda (both should be strong there), plus at least a third group recognized by the BBC, who say three main groups are fighting there. These have different levels of moderation, so the one BBC favors is clear: The known factions "are the Islamic Youth Shura Council, a branch of Ansar al-Sharia, and the more moderate Martyrs of Abuslim Brigade."

The third group being whoever aligned with "Islamic State," unclear. The BBC's activist source said it was a breakaway part of the Shura council. More scrutiny is probably needed before one blames this Shura council breakaway group. The moderate group here take their name from the Abu Salim prison uprising - advertised as a massacre - of al-Qaeda-linked militants and suspects detained after a CIA-MI6-sponsored assassination and overthrow attempt in 1996.

Anyway, in this millieu, BBC reports three activists were just found dead, beheaded, in Dernah. They name them as Siraj Ghatish, Mohamed Battu and Mohamed al-Mesmari. "Our correspondent says they remained low-profile, mostly passing on information via social media pages." The report notes beheadings like this are relatively rare in Libya. It probably is, compared to Iraq and Syria, pits of unknown and deepening barbarity, where Dernah had once the world's record of recruits-per-capita fighting and learning. It's been said they've been flocking back to Libya, and these beheadings seem like a bad sign - a blacker yet wind blowing into the void that was, until 2011, a solid green nation.

The same day, Human Rights Watch issued a statement (based on the preceding surge of violence in a similar vein) calling for action to solve the crisis; Islamists should stop fighting and agree to a "political settlement," and Libya should finally (force the Zintanis to?) hand over Seif Al-Islam Al-Gaddafi to be tried at the Hague.

They point to an International Criminal Court (ICC) statement to that effect as a beacon of light amidst a "deteriorating situation" and "soaring insecurity" with "grave abuses being committed by all sides," here in November 2014. The only side for HRW and the ICC, at one time over three years ago now, was the side of the "Gaddafi regime." But by now Muammar was murdered, along with several of his sons, some grandchildren, top ministers, aides and generals, loyal military forces, supportive civilians, and random "collateral damage" either tossed in a deep prison cell or stomped into their graves.

By now, that's not even one of the sides - or are they again? They're the only side then mentioned as needing fresh punishment at this point. HRW and the ICC feel that the long-jailed son of the martyred leader avoiding "international justice" is what drives the chaos that has plagued Libya ever since it stopped having a natural and functional government. This seems to be the opinion of Richard Dicker, international justice director at Human Rights Watch, who said “Security Council members should make clear that the state of impunity in Libya needs to end,” because it's become "a main driver for the country’s current instability.”

Note: he's not serious about this, or he'd be asking Libya's tribes to mange the hand-over, not distant "security council members" with no more credibility in Libya.

I haven't been following closely enough to have the best say on this, but it sounds pretty preposterous. Last I heard, the charges against Seif were vague and baseless, concocted to justify the overthrow of his father's government and prevent a family-based transitional alternative to the popular and pragmatic Seif. These, as I recall, were mostly connected with issuing orders for the killing of innocent protesters that it seems never happened, or perhaps it was the air strikes on them that also didn't happen, the mass rape orders, the hiring of African mercenaries, or some specific massacre of mostly black civilians he was implicated in...

Maybe somewhere he wronged Al Qaeda or ISIS and they want him tried at the Hague and this really would help chill them out. It's possible? What does everyone else think? Will handing over Saif Al-Gaddafi still the tensions racking Libya and especially its east today? Or is the solution to be found elsewhere? How about installing Seif as president?

See-Through Salem: Al Farjani Hits the Big Time

January 7, 2012
(incomplete - last edits March 28)

<< See-Through Salem: Dr. Salem al-Farjani Or, What Ever Became of Dr. Rajub? 

UN

By November 2 at the latest, our missing persons and massacres expert, Dr. Salem al Farjani, was the acting chairperson of the National Missing Persons Commission. On this day, none other than UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon visited the shed massacre site,  and his tour guide was Dr. al Farjani. He deciphered for him the large-scale Gaddafi regime massacre he has now been caught lying, and apparently helping others lie, about having witnessed. From a UN press release:

The Secretary-General then visited a mass-grave site near the capital and met with the survivors and families of victims of a massacre that had been carried out by the Khamis Brigade 

[...]
After being briefed on the incident in the warehouse by Salem al Ferjani, the acting Chairperson of the National Missing Persons Commission, the Secretary-General told the group he was profoundly shocked by what he had seen and heard. He said the perpetrators of all such human rights crimes should be brought to account. [UN]

Hopefully he'll get another shock soon. One photo linked at the PR shows about ten of these survivors Moon met, none of whom looks obviously familiar from the August batch. Another UN photo shows al Farjani himself, full body, standing with Moon inside the warehouse his alter-ego had visited at least once.

We see here that he's not tall, perhaps a bit leaner than before, and sporting the beginnings of a nicely gray beard. This, as we'll see, was the start of his new, famous-and-not-quite Dr. Rajub look, along with always pointing his chin down, eyes up at militia commanders and Koreans alike. It's apparently the chin he's trying to hide more than anything.

I found an account of Moon's visit from the other side at the Facebook page of the association of holocaust survivors of Yarmouk. Google translated from the original Arabic (goofy parts intact):

...the delegation to listen to the survivors of the Holocaust on how to get the crime. The Alovdayda to listen to the demands of the families of the victims and survivors, which was applied material and moral support by UN agencies to the affected people. He also asked the people to open the tomb, which buried the bodies were burnt with the support of the UN discernible DNA samples where it is difficult discernible such samples. Students as well as urban residents unzip frozen funds for the benefit of the Transitional National Assembly in order to be compensation for the victims of crimes of Gaddafi. [any money if it was a TNC crime and these people aren't the real victims?]

Dr. Salem has Ferjani arranging to meet the delegation of the UN victims' families and survivors. And Dr. Salem with Mr. Secretary-General in this regard and has toured the scene of the crime and informed him of what happened in the prison.

The Association thanks all of the Delegation of the United Nations as well as the delegation of the National Commission to identify the bodies [Dr. Salem] and tracing of his interest in this subject.

ICC

An excellent find from contributor Felix will start the other half:

Dr. Salem al Farjani, left, and Luis 
Moreno-Ocampo, right (Nov. 23, 2011)

It's a Reuters video, Dr.Salem al Farjani (left), apparently, giving a guided tour to none other than ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo! The video can be seen here. It's for sale, and the preview is not great, squished format. This is stretched a bit at left, in a cropped view. The video's better than that, the subjects are just in the background, with one other guy's face filling half the screen) It's not around anywhere else I could find easily (I tried the on-screen serial number, and it only refers to this ITN source video and two cached versions of the same page).

The description says:

The International Criminal Court's (ICC) chief prosecutor visited a military base on the outskirts of Tripoli on Wednesday (November 23) where the charred remains of 53 people were found after the fall of Tripoli to rebel fighters.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who is visiting Libya for talks with authorities after the capture of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, met families of those killed by loyalists of Muammar Gaddafi at the Khamis 32 military base.

Moreno-Ocampo said the ICC was still investigating the alleged crimes committed by Saif al-Islam and other members of the former regime. 

"We are still investigating, that's why I'm here. We are still investigating the crimes and eventually, if there are no security problems, we can pass to them everything we have. Because, in fact, many of them, as today, they are helping us to collect the evidence. So I think it's important to understand for Libya this is crucial, and for our rules, they can do it. But of course all is subject to the ICC judges' authorisation," Moreno-Ocampo told reporters after seeing some of the charred remains.

(skin perhaps, and other charred debris, not the actual bodies, which were removed almost three months prior)

Dr. al Farjani isn't named nor undeniably recognizable here, except in his spot at Ocampo's right side in that charred old shed, like when Moon visited. But this is the first time we can do any voice verification. It's very brief, and he has his back to the camera, just outside the shed. He says the families want the truth about the massacre, and survivors too, and he says it in the exact voice of "Dr. Salim Rajub" speaking in English to Sky News about actually hearing and seeing it happen. And it's probably the voice of "Ahmed al Farjani," the construction worker who sheltered escapee Atiri, right before "Dr. Rajub" brought Atiri to Sky News with him, standing on his right side.

Recall that Dr. Salem told Sky News the ICC and Moreno-Ocampo needed to investigate this Loyalist crime, and the witness he coached, Mustafa el-Hitri, says he saw Khamis personally walk into the compound and give some kind of order just before the massacre.

A Profile Article and Human Rights Consultations
Then there was a December AP article publicizing Dr. al Farjani and his struggle, and his help to Physicians for Human Rights to understand the crime (forthcoming ...) If he's nominated for a nobel prize or some such for his work exposing the "holocaust," that too will be added here.

For now, see the AP article and my post on the PHR report he advised on.

March 28: A video of Moon and Farjani and some victims and family.

Bashir Mohammed at 1:10?

NATO MAY Face War Crimes Probe, Some Claim to Worry

November 22, 2011
(incomplete)

According to a report by the Associated Press (11 November) some NATO diplomats are worried that the alliance may be investigated by the International Criminal Court (ICC) after its prosecutor said allegations of crimes committed by NATO in Libya would be examined "impartially and independently".

The NATO diplomats speaking anonymously said action to pre-empt a war crimes investigation would likely include an immediate internal legal review of all incidents in which NATO bombing or other actions caused civilian casualties.

NATO may be investigated by ICC for alleged war crimes in Libya
Submitted by ian on Fri, 11/11/2011 - 13:35
http://www.natowatch.org/node/577

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen even refuses to acknowledge that were any civilian deaths caused by the bombing. During his monthly press briefing on 3 November, he said:

As regards collateral damage, I have to say that we conducted our operations in Libya in a very careful manner, so we have no confirmed civilian casualties caused by NATO

Casualties, by the way, includes injuries as well as deaths, technically. I do have to say, I imagine you can't fail to confirm a single one of the thousands of civilians they killed, especially in Sirte, without treating the facts and common sense in any other than "a very careful manner."

Chances any NATO country's leader will be handed over for war crimes against humanity trials, or stabbed in the ass and shot dead before even getting the chance?


More perhaps later, or in comments...

So If They DIDN'T Capture Seif...

August 23, 2011
last edits Aug 25

Okay, so the rebels did NOT capture Seif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son and hier apparent to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The invasion of Tripoli, the claims to hold at least 4/5 of it, and the other triumphalist "we took Tripoli in a day, it's over in a week tops" pronouncements. It was reported as fact worldwide, and I was willing to go along, and dismiss the truth journalists there who denied the majority of it, even claiming victory, that the rebels had in fact been lured into a trap in Tripoli. Kooky Gaddafi useful idiot conpiracy theory, many would simply proclaim.

I'd have said probably so, and call it the "Trapoli" theory.

Countering it is of course the certainty that good-guys-win moment had emerged from rebel reports. The most solid resounding victory among these signs of the end, aside from unfurling a rebel flag at Green Square with surprising ease, was the capture of the younger Gaddafi, while his father was somewhere unknown, only speaking via an audio tape, in which he sounded "desperate." People were calling it - Dewey defeats Truman, finally.

I wondered just how they caught Seif so easily, or quickly, but the rebels swore it was so. Then the International Criminlal Court's clown of a chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, confirmed it. He asked that Seif be handed over for trial on human rights abuse charges, rather than killed or mutilated, as some rebels have openly promised to do, in understandable but improper revenge. I was waiting for him to appear at the hague, fingerless and railroaded and dead of some mystery ailment halfway through trial six years down the road.

Just a last hurrah? Perhaps. But it's a good one. 

But then the BBC met face-to-face with Mr. Gaddafi - as he drove up suddenly in a government armored truck to the still government-held Rixos hotel, which still housed and protected the international press corps there.

Matthew Price says Saif al-Islam arrived in an armoured vehicle looking buoyed up and confident, and when asked if his father was safe and in Tripoli, he shrugged off the question, saying: "Of course".

He said in fact the rebels had walked into a trap, and had their backbone broken. elsewhere, it's said he "seemed confident and full of adrenalin."

Lizzie Phelan, one of those truth journalists, speaks with Russia Today over footage from the Rixos, where many Libyans are cheering with him that "freedom" isn't final yet.


Tough talk, perhaps not all true, but clearly true enough to have spun the world around a bit and cheered me the **** back up! There's still hope for something other than total victory for the dark side. Please, don't squander it on more senseless defiance with nothing else. Many fronts, including the compromise and dialog one, can be managed by Libya's brilliant people (temporary partition anyone?). Wisdom still exists in there somewhere.

Also, people of Tripoli, to the extent what the government is saying is true, and you're all part of a trap to surround and swallow the rebels:
1) Can you make it a bit more obvious this is what you're doing?
2) Please respect international human rights standards, and humanely detain the rats, rather than slaughtering them in vengeance or disgust. This will help the world start to see things differently, to justify backing down "with honor", on the off-chance they still can be forced to back off.

A Double?
So, if Seif al-Islam was never captured, what happened with the claim he was arrested? Did the rebels just make it up? The motive is clear, but it seems dangerously short-sighted idea under normal circumstances. All he'd have to do is appear and say "uh, no, you must have me mixed up with someone else."

Perhaps they did. Here's what I imagine happened. They received a friendly tip, just as they rolled in almost, from a very high level defector or an easily taken captive. He told them just where Seif was hiding. They chase off the few wimpy guards, or they just surrender, or get killed, who knows. The man in the room passes the commander's visual ID, mannerisms and voice check, and cases it "that's him."

Webcam video to Moreno-Ocampo scores a confirmation, from what he knows of these things. The world hoots with triumph because it wants to, lets itself start envisioning the bright new future, oil prices finally fall, etc. Then, sometime before the re-appearance, the captive speaks up.

I need to tell you guys a great secret about my father. Okay, you listening close? You'll want to know this now. My father - his name is Farooq Iqbal. I'm his son, Ahmed. * I work for Saif Gaddafi, who is about to re-appear and laugh in your face.

You can do whatever you like with me - try and pass me off, show me to the world and admit you were fooled, kill me for fooling you and pretend you just made the story up, whatever. I'm prepared to die for the revolution, the Jamahiriya, just like the rest of Tripoli and many of those behind you that you think you conquered.

But we won't die. You will. I'm not the only tricky booby-trapped thing you've already run into in Tripoli. You shouldn't have done that.

* made-up, any similarity, disclaimer, yadda yadda

Or...
As a member of a forum I infrequent (and several media reports) suggested, he might've managed to escape from a real custody, and noted in part that "your decoy theory sounds fine for a film," but yadda yadda. As I mused in response:

He was in custody but then escaped. Hmmm.

It's certainly in the realm of possibility. He could trick the one guard he's left with into bending down so he can elbow him, knock the wind out of him, and knee him in the head unconscious. Then, cuffed to the chair, he could still twist around and grab the key to undo the cuffs, take the rebel's "uniform" (a lack of one is how you know which guys in tanks to NOT bomb), and his AK. By now he's got his own beard, can leave that.

Sunglasses, casual victory signs, shouting "Allahu Akbar!", shooting his gun in the air, he'd blend right in. Kick a negro for effect, and he's not just walking out but getting high-fives. Then hightail it for some government safehouse and go get yourself seen.

I could see this too, in another movie, competing with mine for viewers!

Defending Rape Charges: Hysterical Grandstanding

June 13/14 2011

Ooh, a Small but Noisy Controversy!
The claim of mass rape by the besieged regime of Muammar Gaddafi is regularly made to and passed on by the Western media, and generally met with widespread credulity. From rebel-affiliated doctors, supposed neutral experts, and anonymous comments via Twitter and Youtube, we've heard of mass rape, abuse, and humiliation  of women, children, and men in the thousands perhaps by now.

We only hear a few direct accounts, and are told nearly all the victims are silent due to the stringent social taboo against discussing rape or accepting "dishonored" survivors. The Islamic prohibition against lying is another, less acknowledged, potential factor in the dearth of reports.

The body of accusations from this handful includes the famed banshee of the Rixos, Iman al-Obeidi, and her globetrotting theatrics. It includes the ridiculous Viagra claims pushed by Susan Rice to dropped jaws at the UN Security Council. Even the Leader's son Saadi Gaddafi is on the record ordering the rape of male prisoners by African mercenaries, and his top official Abdullah Senoussi is accused of personally sodomizing an old man with a stick in an underground dungeon. These are to some extent collected at this post, which has been getting a lot of views lately.

This renewed interest was triggered by a new twist - on June 9, the International Criminal Court's top prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, added to the ICC's accepted evidence against Col. Gaddafi orders for mass rape. This, he said, was based on "some information" that had them "more convinced" than before of sexual warfare, a "new aspect of the repression" not included in his original set of highly politicized charges. By politicized, I mean they're so technically vague they can only point lazily to the very top shelf - the Leader Muammar Gaddafi, his son and likely successor Saif al-Islam, and Mr. Senoussi. The last was nabbed for a more direct "participation ... in the attacks against demonstrators." Was it below ground level, Mr. M-O?

Immediately after this announcement, a verbal conflict broke out among the Human Rights experts at the United Nations. On one side is M. Cherif Bassiouni, an Egyptian-born UN human rights investigator. He just finished heading up the first-ever official fact-finding mission to Libya and as he announced their findings of regime war crimes, he also managed to cast doubt on Moreno-Ocampo's latest decision (see below for details).

Semantics-Based Quibbles Over "Hysteria"
On the other side are at least two scholarly women, both focused largely on Bassiouni's use of the word "hysteria" to describe the exaggerated and largely baseless claims of mass rape, as alleged against both sides in the conflict. As the Canadian paper National Post reported:

“It is unfortunate that UN investigators of Libyan human rights violations have chosen words which downplay rape allegations and suggest that the main problem was the use of such claims to spread the fear of atrocities, rather than the commission of the atrocities themselves,” Anne Bayefsky, a Canadian political science professor who heads the New York-based monitoring group Eye on the UN, told Postmedia News.

“Investigator Bassiouni’s use of the word ‘hysteria’ in this context is especially insensitive in light of the oft-repeated use of such vocabulary to diminish the credibility of rape victims.”

This is fair enough as a semantical exercise, but it doesn't work any further. Hysteria - in general usage - is one mindset that clouds judgment of what's true. The context of Bassiouni's statements (see below) makes clear that he means not personal hysteria of the pseudo-medical type, but social hysteria of the mass type. That may or may not be a good description of what's going on, but it's clearly something that's not likely to be straight truth.

The first bolded part presumes the atrocities really were carried out, which is the opposite of what Bassiouni implied. In fact, Bayefsky's argument is almost as perverse and criticizing critics of the Salem witch trials for using the term "witch-hunt." Just because the town went mad in its pursuit of witches doesn't excuse the evil done by the witches.

In short, the use of this singular word is nothing to get hysterical over.

Squeezing the Controversy
The other opposing view presented by the National Post is clearly more of a professional - Margot Wallstrom, the UN’s special representative on sexual violence in conflict

Wallstrom defended Moreno-Ocampo’s claims, saying there were “consistent reports from people, from organizations, from UN entities and others on the ground.

“It is difficult to give a figure, but this is part of the arsenal of the Gadhafi troops,” she said.
[...]
Wallstrom, a former Swedish minister, told reporters that armed groups continue to use rape as a weapon of war because it is “cheaper, more destructive and easier to get away with than other methods of warfare.”
[...]
On Bassiouni’s use of the word hysteria, she said officials should “avoid such language.”

“This has been called history’s greatest silence,” she said of the crime of rape. “For too long, it was not considered proper to mention rape and sexual violence.”

Oh, enough with the dramatics! To the extent silence about sexual violence is the problem, loudly proclaiming false rape charges and having the "world community" bully it into legal realty is not the right antidote.

"Consistent" reports, as far as I can see, means they all share the traits of screaming rape, and pointing the weapon at the demonized government. To the extent I've been able to verify, each report or support does so based on murky evidence and unclear methodology. Is a pile of that collectively more or less reliable than its individual parts?

The bolded phrase, “cheaper, more destructive and easier to get away with," is the kind of talk that eggs on those who would try to stop the alleged crime, and who already were doing it, by targeting the regime for destruction. Every new claim only helps justify the course already chosen from day one for other reasons entirely. 

In summary of Wallstrom's comments, it's hard to imagine that someone trying to be honest and level could squeeze that much political poison out of this disagreement. It is a simple clash between her perception of reports and Mr. Bassiouni's findings from going there. And to publicize the difference and grand-stand like this, she had to first commence, as the National Post put it, "squabbling in a way that critics say is causing an unnecessary distraction as the war in the country rages on."

Why He Didn't Quite Buy it
The critical reader who still sides against the alleged down-player might wonder here "who is this Cherif Bassiouni? Some out-of-touch Gaddafi supporter at the UN, as well as a horrible sexist pig?"I can only offer his Wikipedia page, which I haven't even read. He just headed the first ever official fact-finding mission to Libya for one thing, to actually investigate the rumors that have already sort-of justified about 3,000 NATO strike sorties.

He doesn't come across as pro-Gaddafi. The investigator seems to be gripped by the same general assumptions as most about how the conflict unfolded. As Voice of America noted on June 9, the same day he spoke of mass hysteria:

The chair of the Commission of Inquiry, Cherif Bassiouni, does not mince his words as he presents the conclusions of the fact-finding mission to the U.N. Human Rights Council.

“There have been many serious violations of international humanitarian law committed by government forces and their supporters amounting to war crimes. They include attacks on civilians and civilian objects and targets, attacks on humanitarian-related personnel, attacks on medical units and transports using the distinctive emblems of the Geneva Conventions,” Bassiouni said. [source]

It's not clear if these attacks on civilians are of the warfare type where one side is called civilian, or the more crucial (alleged) slaughter of non-violent demonstrators in the first few days. Crimes happen during wars, and the rebels started it. Any other country would have stomped twice as hard as Tripoli did in response to the early rebel outrages.

But the investigators seems to feel differently, and I'll nod to their superior knowledge - for once that seems justified. But it's only on the one issue of mass-rape where the chairman seems to be very at odds with the general lynch mob mindset descending on Gaddafi from all sides. Below is much of an article from the Herald-Sun (Australia), conveying his actual statements on that, including hints of just what the ICC's "new" evidence for mass rape really is:

But Cherif Bassiouni, who is leading a UN rights inquiry into the situation in Libya, suggested that the claim was part of a "massive hysteria".

Mr Bassiouni told journalists that he had heard those claims when he visited rebel-held eastern Libya. But when he went to Tripoli, "the same story comes up."

"This time it's the government people telling us, 'you know what? The opponents have a policy of rape, we have discovered that they are giving out contraceptives and Viagra pills'," he recounted.

"So I told them, 'this is exactly what the other side told us'," he added. "What it is, at least my interpretation of it is, when the information spread out, the society felt so vulnerable... it has created a massive hysteria," said Mr Bassiouni.

The investigator also cited the case of a woman who claimed to have sent out 70,000 questionnaires and received 60,000 responses, of which 259 reported sexual abuse.

However, when the investigators asked for these questionnaires, they never received them.

"But she's going around the world telling everybody about it ... so now she got that information to Ocampo and Ocampo is convinced that here we have a potential 259 women who have responded to the fact that they have been sexually abused," Mr Bassiouni said.

He also pointed out that it did not appear to be credible that the woman was able to send out 70,000 questionnaires in March when the postal service was not functioning.

The circumstances of these 259 alleged reports do sound fishy, especially considering the explosive nature of rape charges and their history of being marred by a very steep convenience-to-plausibility ratio. It's possible rebel networks augmented delivery in lieu of the post office, but to get 60,000 responses back, roughly 1% of Libya's total population, and expect them to be honest, would be a bit much. How many were done in the same hand and ink? Were there really zero mailed-in claims of rape by rebel forces, as the reportage implies? A ratio of 259:0 just doesn't seem plausible to me, if the sampling was at all representative.

There are many variables we don't know, but this is reportedly what convinced Mr. Moreno-Ocampo to modify the charges. And those are against the men at the very top, suggesting further evidence - or imaginings - tying these 259+ possible rapes to orders from on high.

Mr. Bassiouni said he'd be looking into the questionnaires claim further, despite his doubts, and for once I get a slight sense of sanity and a hope that he'll look fairly. He also added:

For the moment, the team has only heard of three cases [of rape by government forces]. "We've not investigated these cases, we hope to be able to investigate them. These would be in the midst of a military operation, a field operation. These would clearly be a war crime."

So he doesn't completely dismiss that rape in a military context might well have happened in at least three cases (besides that of Iman al-Obeidi). But its origin from on high cannot honestly be drawn from these few cases or even from 500, beyond general responsibility. Some "hysteria" to demonize the other side seems to be behind the massive narrative laid out for us, added to by each publicized and believed claim.

As is clear, the 259-victims-by-questionnaire claim adds little to the credibility of this complex of often cartoonish allegations. The ICC and Moreno-Ocampo just don't seem to find that important.

Dumas and Verges: Defend Monsters - Not Gaddafi

June 1/2 2011

I'm not entirely sure NATO can be sued, effectively anyways. But two French lawyers of some repute are ready to give it a try, on behalf on Libyan civilian victims of the organization's air strikes. And more to the point here, they're prepared to defend the leader targeted by all these deadly explosions - Muammar Gaddafi. Some excerpts from a news story on this:

French ex-Minister in Libya, would defend Gaddafi
Peter Graff, Reuters, May 29 2011

Tripoli (Reuters) - Former French foreign minister Roland Dumas visited Libya as a lawyer to prepare a legal case on behalf of victims of NATO bombing and said he was prepared to defend leader Muammar Gaddafi if he is sent to The Hague. Dumas, who served as foreign minister under socialist President Francois Mitterrand, said he had seen several civilian victims of NATO bombing in a hospital and had been told by a doctor there that there were as many as 20,000 more.

I rather doubt that high a number, an issue I'll cover seperately. Nonetheless, there are victims, likely well into the hundreds or perhaps low thousands. It is worth a pause to notice that we can't be sure, considering NATO's record of assassination attempts and 'inability' to confirm things, that there haven't been 20,000.

Nonetheless, as Dumas continued:

"This is brutal, brutal aggression against a sovereign country," Dumas told a news conference in a Tripoli luxury hotel on Sunday, attended by people introduced as family members and supporters of relatives of civilian casualties.

"At the moment we have been retained, we have a mandate on behalf of the victims of the military bombardment of NATO, who carried out their military action against civilians with the artificial -- very artificial -- cover of the United Nations," Dumas said.

"Following an approach by the government of Libya, we have decided to make this trip to see for ourselves the condition of the victims and the situation," he said.

It's the guy with Dumas that has me concerned:

Dumas was accompanied by prominent French defense lawyer Jacques Verges, who said his goal was to "unmask those assassins" responsible for NATO air strikes. Verges said he had wept in hospital upon meeting civilians wounded "solely because they are Libyans."

Verges -- whose clients have included Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie -- and Dumas had been among lawyers expected to defend ousted Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo, who is being investigated for alleged human rights abuses during the conflict sparked by the disputed 2010 presidential election.

Their names were dropped from the most recent list of Gbagbo's lawyers.

I think Gaddafi as well should drop - or not retain - the team. I don't trust, or know much about, these guys. But it seems to me they might be the establishment anti-establishment of France. And as well all know, France has a lot of its people working this war. The one Libyan defector that wound up in France was the one who made contact with the DGSE, protest leaders, and defecting military, to help arrange the protest-war. Their top "human rights" philosopher, Levy, has made an eloquent-sounding case for supporting the rebels (including this laughable episode). Its water privatizing companies have the most use for Libya's publicly-owned "Great Manmade River." France's diplomats were the first to recognize their rebel foot soldiers as Libya's government, its Air Force is taking the lead in bombing, and its strangle little president Sarkozy oversseing it all unapologetically, pinning all France's war crimes on Gaddafi and painting himself as a big hero.

So when some top French war criminal defenders come out to "defend" the target of these psyops, be wary.

Admittedly, the two sound quite possibly sincere, and I don't know much about either. Dumas I've never heard of, in fact, but Verges is a Thailand-born French maverick, immortalized in that Terror's Advocate movie I've been meaning to see. He's made fame, money, and maybe history defending of various terrorists (most famously Carlos the Jackal) and even Nazi war criminals like Barbie. Here's the trailer:

At the end is the line that, clever as it is, troubles me in this context:

I was asked "would you defend Hitler?" I said "I'd even defend Bush! But only if he agrees to plead guilty."

Would he defend Obama, Cameron, or Sarkozy for their current war crimes if they admitted to them? If he defends their adversary Gaddafi, will he require the Leader to first admit his guilt for the charges he's being saddled with by the International Court that's Criminal? Gaddafi needs someone who understands that he is not the monster he's portrayed as, not someone who thinks it's cool to cozy up to monsters.

Legal Warfare: ICC Joins NATO Axis, Insanely Unfair

May 18 2011

Andy Dilks: The “International Criminal Court”: Prosecuting Gaddafi With Questionable Evidence While Ignoring NATO-Israeli Atrocities

The International Criminal Court has requested an arrest warrant for Colonel Gaddafi and his sons for “crimes against humanity”, accusing them of ordering, planning and participating in illegal attacks on civilians. Luis Moreno-Ocampo, International Criminal Court Prosecutor, said, “Based on the evidence collected, the prosecution has applied to pre-trial chamber one for the issuance of arrest warrants against Moammar Muhamad abu Minyar Gaddafi, Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi and Abdullah al-Sanoussi.”

But what is the evidence? The press release on the website of the International Criminal Court makes frequent reference to “direct evidence” but fails to cite any of this evidence in detail. In order to try and clarify the grounds for the prosecution, I emailed the ICC:
[...]
The ICC promptly responded, providing me with a document entitled, PUBLIC REDACTED Version Prosecutor’s Application Pursuant to Article 58 as to Muammar Mohammed Abu Minyar GADDAFI, Saif Al‐Islam GADDAFI and Abdullah AL‐SENUSSI.

Needless to say, “redacted” is the operative word.

Sources backing up the frequent assertions in the document regarding crimes against humanity carried out by Gaddafi and his sons are notable by their absence. For example, the document states, “In the early days of the demonstrations, GADDAFI transmitted orders through his Secretariat to “discipline” civilians, by killing them and destroying their property, who had openly rebelled against the regime. Further, AL‐SENUSSI, upon GADDAFI’s instructions, directed and coordinated the operation of the Security Forces in Benghazi and expressly ordered the shooting at civilians. Demonstrators were attacked by members of the Security Forces who opened machine gun fire on them in different areas of the city, such as the Juliyana bridge and Jamal Abdun Naser Street.” The sources for these alleged transmissions and subsequent attacks are not provided. Further, the report uses vague generalisations concerning the history of Libya in an attempt to bolster its case. “Direct evidence of the plan to use extreme and lethal violence is corroborated by the scale, scope and duration of the attacks; the pattern of the attacks in various cities; the speeches and statements of GADDAFI, SAIF AL‐ISLAM and AL‐SENUSSI; the history of the regime’s response to any political opposition within Libya; and the complete authority exercised by GADDAFI and his subordinates over all important security decisions.” Again, the “direct evidence” is not sourced, while appealing to a state’s prior human rights record is not proof by any measure of the current crimes of which they stand accused.

Again, the link: Prosecutor's submission for the arrest warrants. It's a PDF download, and worth a scan. Indeed, the supporting evidence section, what I'm most interested in as it's probably bunk, is entirely redacted. For "safety" reasons, to be sure. The findings themselves will give us some clues, but I'd have to read it much closer before I could add anything. It's probably just more unsubstantiated and illogical rebel reportage and defector drivel, lapped up eagerly by a corrupt system.

These arrest warrants, if issued, will ensure a longer fight. If there's no safety to guarantee from arrest, there's no negotiation and less chance than ever of turning back this insane operation. Not that NATO and its supporters have previously shown any interest in that. Only holding a country - a rump Libya or Tipolitania if nothing else - will insulate the leader's family from that, and the Gaddafis will insist on that all that harder now, as they arguably should anyway.

More later, perhaps ...