Former US president George W Bush and British ex-premier Tony Blair have been found guilty for “crimes against peace” during the Iraq war at a three-day mock tribunal in Malaysia.
Bush and Blair were tried in absentia by a Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal (KLWCC), an imitative of former premier Mahathir Mohammad that began on Saturday.
The hearing was conducted by seven senior judges headed by retired Malaysian Federal Court judge Abdul Kadir Sulaiman.
The tribunal reached a unanimous guilty verdict after four hours of deliberation.
Announcing the verdict, Abdul Kadir said Bush and Blair had acted with deceit, selectively manipulated international law and committed an unlawful act of aggression and an international crime by invading Iraq in 2003.
The tribunal found that both the accused had contemplated to invade Iraq as far back as September 2001 and had defied the United Nations Resolution 1441, which clearly did not authorise the use of military action to compel Iraq’s compliance.
Bush and seven top US officials who served under him faced a separate charge of crimes of torture and war crimes at the tribunal of conscience, modelled on the one convened by philosopher Bertrand Russell in 1966 to try the perpetrators of the Vietnam War.
Kadir said the Bush and Blair had admitted since the Iraq war that they knew or believed the intelligence reports on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction to be unreliable and yet both proceeded to wage war against Iraq based on this false and contrite basis.
Memoirs by both, which were tendered as evidence, were also found to implicate Bush and Blair, both having admitted their own intention to invade Iraq, regardless of international law.
The tribunal suggested that the KLWCC file a report with the International Criminal Court against both the accused under the Nuremberg principles and include reports of genocide and crimes against humanity committed by Bush and Blair.
It also recommended that the names of both accused be entered into the Register of War Criminals and publicised.
Chief prosecutor Professor Gurdial S. Nijar, in his summation, reiterated key documents of several intelligence reports that indicated there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq reported by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Mahathir, who stepped down in 2003 after 22 years in power, unveiled plans for the tribunal in 2007. (PTI)