Greek Lawyers Accuse Blair Of War Crimes

In a communication, a copy of which e-mailed to IslamOnline.net, members of the Athens Bar Association prepared 22 charges referring to specific incidents and requested the Office of the Prosecutor to exercise the jurisdiction of the ICC in crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide.

President of the Athens Bar Association Dimitris Paxinos and attorneys Ms. Zoe Konstantopoulou and Mr. Theodoros Mantas further presented a dossier containing 74 press clippings and 13 video-tapes of news reports on the Iraq war.

A senior Greek lawyer, who helped draw up the lawsuit, told the BBC News Online that it would be difficult for the British prime minister and others to defend themselves against the charges.

She said that heinous crimes, include the killing of Iraqi civilians, depriving the population of drinking water in cities such as Basra, the destruction of food supplies and the bombardment of residential areas, have been committed and must not go unpunished.

The Greek lawyers also charged the U.S. with brazenly violating the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, the 1945 Convention of The Hague and the ICC’s Statute.

"The repeated, blatant violations by the United States and Britain of the stipulations of the four 1949 Geneva conventions, the 1954 Convention of The Hague as well as of the International Criminal Court’s charter constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity," the Daily Telegraph quoted the group as saying.

The Office of the ICC’s Chief Prosecutor handed a written letter acknowledging receipt of this communication to the members of the Association and will pledged to review its content.

Among those accused with Blair are his Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, and Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, who recently retired as Chief of Defense Staff.

Blair has suffered huge political damage as a result of the death of an arms expert at the center of a row over whether his government "sexed up" evidence on Iraq before the war.

The YouGov survey for the right-wing Daily Telegraph found that 47 percent of the voters felt the government was to blame for the death of David Kelly.

Addressing the U.S. Congress on Thursday, July 17, Blair claimed that "history will forgive" the United States and Britain for waging war on Iraq even if it was uncertain whether Baghdad posed a threat by its alleged weapons of mass destruction.

The case is highly unlikely to reach court since it can act only in cases where national courts are unable or unwilling to pursue abuses.

The ICC already has more than 500 complaints to review, at least 100 involving the war in Iraq.

The ICC has jurisdiction to prosecute individuals chares with war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide provided that the crimes were committed after July 1, 2002, and the defendants hail from countries that had ratifies, and not only signed, the ICC Statute.

Britain had inked the ICC statues on November 30, 1998, and ratified it on October 4, 2001, placing British citizens under the ICC jurisdiction.

Because Washington has refused to sign up to the ICC, no American officials were named in the Greek communication.

A lawsuit was filed against the war twin U.S. President George W. Bush and Blair last month before a Belgian court over charges of war crimes in Iraq.

U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Attorney General John Ashcroft, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice were additionally accused over the U.S.-led campaign in Afghanistan.

However, The Belgian government decided July 12 to repeal the country’s controversial war crimes law that had been used in attempts to indict leaders around the world for crimes against humanity.