RINF.com
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008
By UN HIGH Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said yesterday that planned Guantanamo war crimes trials fell short of international standards and handing down death penalties would be “just not acceptable”.
In an interview with Reuters before leaving office on June 30, the former UN war crimes chief prosecutor chided the administration of US President George W Bush for last week’s decision to distance itself from the UN Human Rights Council.
It was much too soon to write off the Geneva forum set up two years ago, in which Washington could play an important role in defusing a perceived confrontation between members of the European Union (EU) and Islamic countries, according to Arbour.
The former Canadian Supreme Court judge, 61, is going home after deciding not to seek a second four-year term.
Arbour has long denounced the system created by the Bush administration to try suspected Al Qaeda operatives outside regular civilian and military courts, and alleged torture and secret renditions conducted in the US-led “war on terrorism”.
“In a process where the definition of a crime is somewhat more ambiguous, the standard of proof is lowered, the capacity to make a full answer of defence is lowered, the chances of wrongful conviction necessarily increases,” Arbour said.
“So to add the death penalty to that, it seems to me, is just not acceptable,” she said of the Guantanamo trials.
Arbour said international human rights law permitted the death penalty for the most serious crimes if trials are fair.
No comments:
Post a Comment