Mock tribunal to try Bush for crimes in Afghanistan

Tuesday, December 10, 2002 at 09:21 JST
TOKYO – A group of citizens in Japan said Monday they will launch a mock tribunal to try U.S. President George W Bush on war crime charges over military attacks on Afghanistan last year in retaliation for last year’s Sept 11 attacks on the United States.

The organizing committee for the “International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan” will hold public hearings in some locations in Japan, beginning with one in Tokyo next Sunday, before handing down a “ruling” on Dec 13 and 14 next year, the group said.

The group, co-chaired by Akira Maeda, professor of international criminal law at the Tokyo University of Art and Design, said it will deliver the ruling to the White House.

It said it has visited Afghanistan three times to look into war damage there.

Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who organized a similar tribunal in New York in 1992 against then U.S. President George Bush over the 1991 Persian Gulf War, is a special adviser to the upcoming tribunal, they said. (Kyodo News)