The Bush Six
Encyclopedia
The Bush Six is a term which refers to six former officials of the United States government under the presidency of George W. Bush
(2001–09), following the filing of criminal charges against them in Spain
.
In March 2009 Baltasar Garzón
was asked to consider whether Spain should allow charges to be filed against:
Jane Mayer
, writing in The New Yorker
, reported that Phillipe Sands had predicted that charges would be laid against the six men back in his 2008 book Torture Team.
Mayer reported that after hearing news of the Spanish charges, Sands told her, "This is the end of these people’s professional reputations! This is no joke. We’re talking about the serious potential deprivation of liberty.”
Scott Horton
, writing in The Daily Beast
, reported on April 13, 2009, that his sources said formal charges would be filed on April 14, 2009.
Horton reported that Garzón had been urged to allow another judge, Ismail Moreno, to conduct the case, because he was still involved in the possible prosecution of Spanish former Guantanamo captives.
Paul Havens, reporting for the Associated Press
reported that an unnamed source within the Spanish prosecutors office had told him that the charges would be filed during the week of April 14, 2009.
CNN
, also quoting an unnamed source within the Spanish prosecutor's office, reported that charges were not expected for several days.
On April 16, 2009, the Spanish Attorney General
stated he thought the Spanish investigative magistrate should drop the consideration of charges against the six men.
Under the Spanish justice system, investigating magistrates like Garzón are not under the authority of the Attorney General, and he can continue to consider laying charges even though the Attorney General has advised against it.
On April 23, 2009, Eloy Velasco took over responsibility for determining whether or not the six former Bush officials should face Spanish charges.
The Guardian
reported on April 29, 2009, that Garzón initiated a formal investigation into whether confessions from four former Guantanamo captives was the result of the use of abusive interrogation techniques.
The four men:
Hamed Abderrahman Ahmed, Lahcen Ikassrien
, Jamiel Abdul Latif al Banna and Omar Deghayes
, had previously faced charges in Spanish courts, based on confessions they made while in US custody.
Their charges had been dropped based on their claims that their confessions were false and were the result of abusive interrogation techniques.
On May 5, 2009, Investigating Magistrate Eloy Velasco formally requested the USA to indicate whether they were going to conduct a domestic inquiry into the six men's conduct.
Spain's principle of universal justice allows third party states to charge non-citizens, and request their extradition, only when their country of citizenship has not conducted its own investigation.
On May 20, 2009, the New York Times reported that some Spanish legislators were proposing a law to strip investigating magistrates of the authority to pursue international human rights cases.
This law, however, would not retroactively put an end to the progress of current cases. It would merely have stopped the initiation of similar cases.
According to historian Andy Worthington
, writing in the Huffington Post,
Spanish newspaper Público
had reported that Garzón was proceeding to the next phase of his investigation.
In February 2011, Spain’s High Court led by Judge Ruz rejected a Spanish prosecutor’s effort to stop the investigation.
centered on the progression of the case. On April 1, 2009 a summary of the case was sent to the U.S. State Department by the Madrid Embassy. The cable suggests that the U.S. had intended to convince Spanish Officials to interfere with the National Court's judicial independence
:
The cable reveals that Chief Prosecutor Javier Zaragoza intended to steer the case away from its assignment to Judge Baltasar Garzón
who is well known for investigating a universal jurisdiction
case targeting Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet
and has been an outspoken critic of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and has publicly stated that former President George W. Bush
should be tried for war crimes.. Garzón was "forced to give up" the case against the Bush Six to another judge who declined to pursue the investigation. Garzón, however, continued an investigation in to torture at Guantanamo Bay and U.S. Officials indicated in a cable they feared he may, "attempt to wring all the publicity he can from the case unless and until he is forced to give it up."
U.S. Senators, Mel Martinez
and Judd Gregg
lobbied on behalf of the U.S. government position as summarized in a embassy cable sent on April 17, 2009. Senator Martinez warned that, "the prosecutions would neither be understood nor accepted in the U.S. and would have an enormous impact on the bilateral relationship." Spanish Foreign Minister Angel Lossada was quoted as saying, "the National Court had broad jurisdiction for universal justice and that there was no political influence on the judicial process."
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
(2001–09), following the filing of criminal charges against them in Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
.
In March 2009 Baltasar Garzón
Baltasar Garzón
Baltasar Garzón Real is a Spanish jurist who served on Spain's central criminal court, the Audiencia Nacional. He was the examining magistrate of the Juzgado Central de Instrucción No...
was asked to consider whether Spain should allow charges to be filed against:
- Alberto GonzalesAlberto GonzalesAlberto R. Gonzales was the 80th Attorney General of the United States. Gonzales was appointed to the post in February 2005 by President George W. Bush. Gonzales was the first Hispanic Attorney General in U.S. history and the highest-ranking Hispanic government official ever...
, former United States Attorney GeneralUnited States Attorney GeneralThe United States Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government. The attorney general is considered to be the chief lawyer of the U.S. government...
; - John YooJohn YooJohn Choon Yoo is an American attorney, law professor, and author. As a former official in the United States Department of Justice during the George W...
, of the Office of Legal CounselOffice of Legal CounselThe Office of Legal Counsel is an office in the United States Department of Justice that assists the Attorney General in his function as legal adviser to the President and all executive branch agencies.-History:...
; - Douglas FeithDouglas FeithDouglas J. Feith served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy for United States President George W. Bush from July 2001 until August 2005. His official responsibilities included the formulation of defense planning guidance and forces policy, United States Department of Defense relations...
, former undersecretary of defense for policy; - William Haynes II, former general counsel for the Department of Defense (chief counsel for Donald Rumsfeld);
- Jay BybeeJay BybeeJay Scott Bybee is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He has published numerous articles in law journals and taught law school; his primary interests are in constitutional and administrative law....
, also at the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel; and - David AddingtonDavid AddingtonDavid Spears Addington , was legal counsel and chief of staff to former Vice President Dick Cheney, and is now vice president of domestic and economic policy studies at The Heritage Foundation....
, former Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United StatesChief of Staff to the Vice President of the United StatesThe Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States is the Chief of Staff position within the Office of the Vice President, part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States...
(under Dick CheneyDick CheneyRichard Bruce "Dick" Cheney served as the 46th Vice President of the United States , under George W. Bush....
).
Jane Mayer
Jane Mayer
Jane Mayer is an American investigative journalist who has been a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine since 1995...
, writing in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, reported that Phillipe Sands had predicted that charges would be laid against the six men back in his 2008 book Torture Team.
Mayer reported that after hearing news of the Spanish charges, Sands told her, "This is the end of these people’s professional reputations! This is no joke. We’re talking about the serious potential deprivation of liberty.”
Scott Horton
Scott Horton (lawyer)
Scott Horton is a New York attorney known for his work in human rights law and the law of armed conflict, as well as emerging markets and international law. He graduated Texas Law School in Austin with a JD and was a partner in a large New York law firm, Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler...
, writing in The Daily Beast
The Daily Beast
The Daily Beast is an American news reporting and opinion website founded and published by Tina Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker as well as the short-lived Talk Magazine. The Daily Beast was launched on October 6, 2008, and is owned by IAC...
, reported on April 13, 2009, that his sources said formal charges would be filed on April 14, 2009.
Horton reported that Garzón had been urged to allow another judge, Ismail Moreno, to conduct the case, because he was still involved in the possible prosecution of Spanish former Guantanamo captives.
Paul Havens, reporting for the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
reported that an unnamed source within the Spanish prosecutors office had told him that the charges would be filed during the week of April 14, 2009.
CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
, also quoting an unnamed source within the Spanish prosecutor's office, reported that charges were not expected for several days.
On April 16, 2009, the Spanish Attorney General
Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general, or attorney-general, is the main legal advisor to the government, and in some jurisdictions he or she may also have executive responsibility for law enforcement or responsibility for public prosecutions.The term is used to refer to any person...
stated he thought the Spanish investigative magistrate should drop the consideration of charges against the six men.
Under the Spanish justice system, investigating magistrates like Garzón are not under the authority of the Attorney General, and he can continue to consider laying charges even though the Attorney General has advised against it.
On April 23, 2009, Eloy Velasco took over responsibility for determining whether or not the six former Bush officials should face Spanish charges.
The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
reported on April 29, 2009, that Garzón initiated a formal investigation into whether confessions from four former Guantanamo captives was the result of the use of abusive interrogation techniques.
The four men:
Hamed Abderrahman Ahmed, Lahcen Ikassrien
Lahcen Ikassrien
Lahcen Ikassrien is a citizen of Morocco who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.Ikassrien's Guantanamo ISN was 72....
, Jamiel Abdul Latif al Banna and Omar Deghayes
Omar Deghayes
Omar Deghayes is a Libyan citizen with residency status in the United Kingdom, who was arrested in Pakistan in 2002. He currently lives in the United Kingdom....
, had previously faced charges in Spanish courts, based on confessions they made while in US custody.
Their charges had been dropped based on their claims that their confessions were false and were the result of abusive interrogation techniques.
On May 5, 2009, Investigating Magistrate Eloy Velasco formally requested the USA to indicate whether they were going to conduct a domestic inquiry into the six men's conduct.
Spain's principle of universal justice allows third party states to charge non-citizens, and request their extradition, only when their country of citizenship has not conducted its own investigation.
On May 20, 2009, the New York Times reported that some Spanish legislators were proposing a law to strip investigating magistrates of the authority to pursue international human rights cases.
This law, however, would not retroactively put an end to the progress of current cases. It would merely have stopped the initiation of similar cases.
According to historian Andy Worthington
Andy Worthington
Andy Worthington is a British historian, journalist, and film director.He has published three books, and been published in numerous publications.In 2009 Worthington was the co-director of a documentary about the Guantanamo detainees....
, writing in the Huffington Post,
Spanish newspaper Público
Público
Público is a Portuguese daily national newspaper.It began publication on March 5, 1990. The newspaper is known as a publication of the French school, with extensive texts and few illustrations...
had reported that Garzón was proceeding to the next phase of his investigation.
In February 2011, Spain’s High Court led by Judge Ruz rejected a Spanish prosecutor’s effort to stop the investigation.
U.S. Embassy Cables
Numerous embassy cables leaked by the whistle-blowing website WikileaksWikileaks
WikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...
centered on the progression of the case. On April 1, 2009 a summary of the case was sent to the U.S. State Department by the Madrid Embassy. The cable suggests that the U.S. had intended to convince Spanish Officials to interfere with the National Court's judicial independence
Judicial independence
Judicial Independence is the idea that the judiciary needs to be kept away from the other branches of government...
:
we do not know if the government would be willing to take the risky step of trying behind the scenes to influence the prosecutor's recommendation on this case or what their reaction to such a request would be.
The cable reveals that Chief Prosecutor Javier Zaragoza intended to steer the case away from its assignment to Judge Baltasar Garzón
Baltasar Garzón
Baltasar Garzón Real is a Spanish jurist who served on Spain's central criminal court, the Audiencia Nacional. He was the examining magistrate of the Juzgado Central de Instrucción No...
who is well known for investigating a universal jurisdiction
Universal jurisdiction
Universal jurisdiction or universality principle is a principle in public international law whereby states claim criminal jurisdiction over persons whose alleged crimes were committed outside the boundaries of the prosecuting state, regardless of nationality, country of residence, or any other...
case targeting Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet
Augusto Pinochet
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, more commonly known as Augusto Pinochet , was a Chilean army general and dictator who assumed power in a coup d'état on 11 September 1973...
and has been an outspoken critic of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and has publicly stated that former President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
should be tried for war crimes.. Garzón was "forced to give up" the case against the Bush Six to another judge who declined to pursue the investigation. Garzón, however, continued an investigation in to torture at Guantanamo Bay and U.S. Officials indicated in a cable they feared he may, "attempt to wring all the publicity he can from the case unless and until he is forced to give it up."
U.S. Senators, Mel Martinez
Mel Martinez
Melquíades Rafael Martínez Ruiz, usually known as Mel Martinez , is a former United States Senator from Florida and served as Chairman of the Republican Party from November 2006 until October 19, 2007, the first Latino to serve as chairman of a major party...
and Judd Gregg
Judd Gregg
Judd Alan Gregg is a former Governor of New Hampshire and former United States Senator from New Hampshire, who served as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. He is a member of the Republican Party and was a businessman and attorney in Nashua before entering politics...
lobbied on behalf of the U.S. government position as summarized in a embassy cable sent on April 17, 2009. Senator Martinez warned that, "the prosecutions would neither be understood nor accepted in the U.S. and would have an enormous impact on the bilateral relationship." Spanish Foreign Minister Angel Lossada was quoted as saying, "the National Court had broad jurisdiction for universal justice and that there was no political influence on the judicial process."