Human rights groups have vowed that the former US President George W. Bush will face a torture case against him wherever he travels outside the United States.

By Geraldine Coughlan

Human rights groups had planned to lodge a Swiss criminal case against Bush before his address to a Jewish charity in Geneva this week. But organisers cancelled his speech, citing security concerns.

The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights and the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights issued what they called a preliminary "indictment" to prosecute Bush abroad for the alleged torture of terrorism suspects in US custody.

However, rights groups point out that, "Swiss law requires the presence of the torturer on Swiss soil before a preliminary investigation can be opened".

The human rights groups said Bush would not be entitled to immunity from prosecution as a former head of state. But Swiss officials said he would enjoy "a certain diplomatic immunity" in Switzerland.

As Swiss law requires an alleged torturer to be on Swiss soil before a preliminary investigation can be opened, the groups decided not to lodge their complaint in Geneva. They said it would have been on behalf of two torture victims at Guantanamo Bay.

In his memoirs published last year, Bush claimed that use of the water boarding technique, which simulates drowning, had directly prevented terror attacks in Britain and the United States.

Most human rights experts consider waterboarding a form of torture banned by the Convention on Torture, an international pact prohibiting torture and other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment. Switzerland and the United States are among 147 countries to have ratified the 1987 treaty.

Human Rights Watch said in New York that, as all states are obliged to prosecute torturers, the US authorities themselves should be pursuing Bush.

The organization said that the US government needs to demonstrate that no official, including a former president, is above the law.

The Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), said, "This is our way of putting him on notice,", adding that there were rumours that Bush would go to Canada in October.

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Earlier IJT editions:

• International Justice Tribune, 121 (2 February 2011)
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