The senior United Nations expert on the integrity of legal processes states that beginning next year, Donald Rumsfeld will have difficulties traveling outside of the United States because of his connection to war crimes. The official, Leandro Despouy, drew his conclusions based largely on a review of the recently released report of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which directly connected the mistreatment of prisoners to policy decisions taken by Rumsfeld. Despouy is a well-known Argentine human rights lawyer and diplomat who has served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers since 2003.
Despouy also strongly supported the initiative of President Barack Obama to close the detention facility at Guantánamo.
Despouy said the “strong resistance” put forward by the former US administration to current US president Barack Obama’s decision to close the detention centre has nothing to do with the officially cited reason of “national security” considerations.
Rather they are fearful that they may be taken to task once the detention centre is closed, said Despouy.
His comments echoed those of another senior U.N. expert, Manfred Nowak, who said that the United States had a formal legal obligation to open a criminal investigation into the use of torture by the Bush Administration and to prosecute those who developed torture policy.
