From: Robert THOMPSON, Avocat Honoraire au Barreau de Boulogne-sur-Mer, Retired Solicitor (Honours), England and Wales, RIMBOVAL, FRANCE

To: Mr George W. Bush,President of the U.S.A., The White House, WASHINGTON D.C., U.S.A.

28th November 2005

Mr President,

I openly accuse you of being a criminal under many international agreements, but most simply under the Nuremberg Principles.

Following the Second World War, the Allied Powers decided to establish the Nuremberg Tribunal to try the leading Nazis. They decided that it was necessary to punish those guilty of so many hideous crimes, but they first had to define the crimes in question.

These definitions were drafted to serve as a basis for the Tribunal which was to be established in Nuremberg because the city had served as the site of some of Adolf Hitler’s greatest popular triumphs, when he persuaded the German people to follow his criminal way. These rules have since been known as the Nuremberg Principles (each of which I shall hereinafter set out as a “Principle” with its number). They remain valid as a very simple basis of our understanding of the most serious crimes recognised under international law.

As we must now fight against terrorism, including state terrorism on a massive scale, we are bound to enquire whether or not these old definitions, dating from 1946, should apply to present circumstances, by referring first to the behaviour of yourself and other leaders and high officials of nations which are members of the United Nations.

Three specific crimes are defined in Principle VI, namely :

(a) Crimes against Peace :

(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances ;

(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).

(b) War crimes :

Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave-labour or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory; murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war, of persons on the Seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity;

(c) Crimes against humanity :

Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime.

Principle VII adds :

Complicity in a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law.

There we can see the actions which are considered to be crimes according to international law, of which the definitions were unanimously accepted by the United Nations, but it is also necessary to see who can be treated as a criminal. This question is settled by Principles I to IV, which tell us :

Principle I

Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment.

Principle II

The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed that act from reponsability under international law.

Principle III

The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible Government official does not relieve him from reponsibility under international law.

Principle IV

The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.

The treatment of any person accused of these crimes is settled by Principle V which provides that :

Any person charged with a crime under international law has the right to a fair trial on the facts and law.

We ordinary people question whether or not you and certain other national leaders are criminals, and we think first of two inextricablely linked countries, firstly your United States of America, which leads us to examine the background of your present administration, which has held power, following a highly dubious electoral victory and with minor changes in its members, since January 2001. The other government under accusation, even if it is a totally artificial state, is that of the “state of Israel”.

Your administration reached power with aims and plans carefully prepared by a group of persons with common interests generally and for the sake of convenience known as “neo-conservatives”, or more shortly as “neo-cons”. Your administration still keeps a tight and complete grip on finance, on the armed forces and on the freedom of the United States and of their citizens.

Among your administration’s plans thus prepared well before the election in 2000, your neo-cons had drafted detailed plans for the invasion of Iraq, which you saw as a country where there were plentiful petroleum reserves. Furthermore, the United States under your father had had agreements and then disagreements (for what remain uncertain reasons) with the extremely unpleasant then leader of that country – which could serve as a further excuse. While we can examine the history of this disagreement, we ought now to consider the possible criminality of yourself and those within your present administration, as well as your allies. We should leave this matter to be examined later.

For more than four years now, we are waiting – with some impatience – a probing and complete enquiry into the events which led to the horrors of 11th September 2001, but what is already certain is that your administration showed weakness and stupidity in its reactions, even if it did not – in contrast with what many in your country believe – fully understand what had happened to your country. For those of us who live in countries where terrorist violence has for many years been given financial and military assistance from either the government of the United States or, under their mantle, by well-organised groups based in the United States, this can seem surprising. But that has not prevented us from showing our sympathy and our sadness when faced with this loss of innocent lives in New York and elsewhere. Although the ordinary citizens of the United States seem to have allowed such activities to continue against others for so many years, we are not among those who see with glee such things happen to the United States as if they were a well deserved punishment.

So, after a few days’ hesitation, your administration decided that it could use these attacks by persons having no link with Iraq (where the régime efficiently suppressed them by the use of force) as an excuse to start your war prepared well in advance against that country. You used dubious Iraqi exiles, including Mr Ahmed Chalaby, then still wanted in Jordan on a charge relating to banking fraud, to persuade influential people to believe that the invaders would be welcomed as liberators with flowers. You deliberately rejected the advice of the experts who were available to you to obtain the backing for your plans from members of the administration who had doubts and from almost all the legislators in the United States. In addition, the United States under your rule refused to act in accordance with decisions of the United Nations, which wished to allow the Inspectors to complete their task, before considering hostilities.

We must therefore examine your possible criminality and that of your principal advisers and assistants as well as your closest allies, and we must thus look at the facts and the provisions applicable to them. I have many years of practical experience of national criminal law in France and in England and also of international law, but I have no knowledge of the internal law in the United States, whether federal or in any individual state, and I have never crossed the Atlantic. I am therefore bound to limit my comments to the Nuremberge Principles as a means of definition of crimes according to international law, and to leave to lawyers qualified in the United States to examine any question of local law.

For the very simple reason that I do not know enough about so many people accused by the public I have had to make a selection of persons without taking account of all the members of your administration and your closest allies. I have therefore chosen to examine the cases of the following : yourself, Mr Richard Cheney, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, Mr Paul Wolfowitz, Doctor Condoleezza Rice (all citizens of the United States), Mr Ariel Sharon (born in Palestine) and Mr Anthony C.L. Blair (a Scotsman).

Looking first at the crimes defined in Principle VI, the known facts which all of you have recognised – and which have been confirmed by the media which obey your orders – lead me to the inevitable conclusion that you are all guilty of having committed

a) crimes against peace, because you planned, initiated and waged a war of aggression against Iraq in violation of an international agreement contained in the clearly drafted resolutions of the Security Council and/or, in the case of Mr Sharon, against the Palestinians in violation of a whole series of resolutions ;

b) war crimes, because you were responsible for the ill-treatment and the deportation of civilians, and of prisoners of war, such as those who were transferred to Guantanamo from Afghanistan and from elsewhere and in the case of Mr Sharon in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the occupied territories, especially in East Jerusalem and elsewhere in the West Bank – you are all also responsible for the destruction of towns and villages in Iraq and in Palestine, such as the “non-recognised” villages being demolished in the Naqab;

c) crimes against humanity, because you are all implicated in the assassination of civilians in Iraq and/or in Palestine and in the deportation of civilians from Afghanistan and from elsewhere to Guantanamo or from certain sectors of Palestine to other places.

It does not seem to me necessary to describe in greater detail your crimes because they are so very obvious, and since you have even claimed how wonderful these acts were when you have all taken reponsability for them in public.

It is then appropriate to examine your possible guilt under the provisions of Principle VII, where the situation seems even worse.

You are all guilty of collusion in the crimes committed in Iraq as well as in those committed against persons captured in Afghanistan or elsewhere – you are therefore all guilty under this Principle. Furthermore, over a much longer period, you are all accomplices in the crimes committed directly by Mr Sharon and by the other Zionist invaders – Mr Wolfowitz being the most closely implicated – against the people of Palestine. You personally went so far as to declare to the whole world that Mr Sharon was a “man of peace”, which would have allowed us to ask any person of normal intelligence for an explanation. In the present case, one could make a plea in mitigation that you have never understood that there is a difference between a war of aggression and peace, but the grounds of such a plea would be limited to diminished responsability – since one could never find any grounds on which to find you not guilty of such serious crimes.

In conclusion, it is my conviction that you are all definitely guilty of very serious crimes as defined in the Nuremberg Principles, and I would be greatly relieved to see you all charged by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, which for obvious reasons your country and the “state of Israel” refuse to recognise, but which is recognised by the United Kingdom.

To avoid any accusation of having neglected a basic question, I confirm my view that the acts committed by all of you are examples of terrorist acts agaisnt which the United Nations have undertaken to fight.

Given that you are all, while in office, too powerful to be dragged like Mr Slobodan Milosevic – in comparison a petty criminal – before the International Criminal Court, I can only hope that you and your fellow criminals will be arrested and tried after leaving office for so many crimes under international law.

Yours truly,

Robert Thompson