Att.: mr. Richard Dicker - Email:  dickerr@hrw.org - International Justice Program Director, Human Rights Watch. / CC: People & organisations in the ICC press release + Indymedia.


Conc.: The ICC has unsealed an arrest warrant for the Democratic Republic of Congo as well as confirmed the arrest and transfer of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo.


Dear mr. Dicker.

MAY I WONDER IF YOU CAN HELP ME SORT THIS OUT?

The Netherlands - March 19, 2006 - The FPF has received a press release from the ICC with the information concerning the arrival of mr. Thomas Lubanga. - [ http://tinyurl.com/owbj2] - Among other crimes concerning the charges against mr. Lubanga, the ICC press release states that he was 'forcing young children to participate in warfare'. It says: "This is a serious crime, but the ICC prosecutor must also press additional charges against militia leaders for massacres, torture and rape." [end quote ICC]

I know that Chief Prosecutor Moreno Ocampo can bring charges only if individual countries are unable or unwilling to prosecute war crimes, genocide or major human rights violations. He can - due to US pressure - also only prosecute crimes committed after July 1, 2002, the official date of the court's inception.

May I bring the following war crime with text and picture material to your attention, a gross murder which is committed after July 1, 2002, and were the killers are known?

And in your appreciated answer maybe you can explain what the International Criminal Court is going to do about the evidence and this war crime: the deliberately shooting in the head of five small children, killing their parents too, two men and four women.

IF THERE'S ANY JUSTICE LEFT IN THIS WORLD, THE MURDERERS MUST BE BROUGHT TO TRIAL, DON'T YOU AGREE?

For your convenience I've pasted the story below, but to see the picture of the five toddlers which were killed, you can use the 'link' given below.

Looking forward to your answer,

I meanwhile remain,


Henk Ruyssenaars


Article which is referred to - and for your and the ICC's documentation:

US raid on home killed 11 family members - [ http://tinyurl.com/s2flm]

By Amer Amery

03/16/06 - TIKRIT, Iraq, March 15 (Reuters) - Eleven members of an Iraqi family were killed in a U.S. raid on Wednesday, police and witnesses said. The U.S. military said two women and a child died during the bid to seize an al Qaeda militant from a house.

SHOT IN THE HEAD

A senior Iraqi police officer said autopsies on the bodies, which included five children, showed each had been shot in the head. Community leaders said they were outraged at the killings and demanded an explanation from the U.S. military.

Television footage showed the bodies in the Tikrit morgue - five children, two men and four women. Their wounds were not clear though one infant had a gaping head wound.

A freelance photographer later saw them being buried by weeping men in Ishaqi, the town 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad where the raid took place.

The U.S. military said in a statement its troops had attacked a house in Ishaqi early on Wednesday to capture a "foreign fighter facilitator for the al Qaeda in Iraq network".

"Troops were engaged by enemy fire as they approached the building," spokesman Major Tim Keefe said. "Coalition Forces returned fire utilising both air and ground assets.

"There was one enemy killed. Two women and one child were also killed in the firefight. The building ... (was) destroyed."

Keefe said the al Qaeda suspect had been captured and was being questioned.

RUBBLE

Major Ali Ahmed of the Ishaqi police said U.S. forces had landed on the roof of the house in the early hours and shot the 11 occupants, including the five children.

"After they left the house they blew it up," he said.

Another policeman, Colonel Farouq Hussein, said autopsies had been carried out at Tikrit hospital and found "all the victims had gunshot wounds to the head".

The bodies, their hands bound, had been dumped in one room before the house was destroyed, Hussein said. Police had found spent American-issue cartridges in the rubble.

"It's a clear and perfect crime without any doubt," he said.

Police in Salahaddin province, a heartland of the Sunni Arab insurgency and the home region of Saddam Hussein, have frequently criticised U.S. military tactics in the area.

Police officers said the U.S. military had asked for a meeting with local tribal leaders. The Joint Co-ordination Centre in Tikrit which coordinates between U.S. and Iraqi security forces said later the meeting would happen on Friday.

Ishaqi's town administrator, Rasheed Shather, said the town was shocked: "Everyone went to the funeral. We want the Americans to give us an explanation for this horrible crime."

ALL LOOKED UNDER THE AGE OF FIVE

Photographs of the funeral showed men crying as five children, who all looked under the age of five, were wrapped in blankets and then lined up in a row. One man who described himself as a relative said one was just seven months old.

"They killed these innocent children. Are these considered terrorists? Is a seven-month-old child a terrorist?" he said angrily, speaking close to the remains of the house.

LOCAL TEACHER FAEQ NSAEF WAS ALSO OUTRAGED: "AN ENTIRE FAMILY WAS KILLED. IT'S A BARBARIAN ACT."

In January a U.S. air strike on a house in Baiji, further north, killed several members of a family. In December U.S. fighter jets dropped two 500-pound bombs on a village, also in the region, killing 10 people. The U.S. military said the people targeted had been suspected of planting roadside bombs.

[andend] - Additional reporting by Ghazwan al-Jibouri in Tikrit and Aseel Kami in Baghdad
 

References:

* The article, including a picture of the murdered babies, the other victims and comments, can be found at Url.:  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12379.htm

* 2005 Nobel Literature Prize winner Harold Pinter: "People do not forget. They do not forget the death of their fellows, they do not forget torture and mutilation, they do not forget injustice, they do not forget oppression, they do not forget the terrorism of mighty powers. They not only don't forget: they also strike back." - FPF Argentina - Url.:  http://tinyurl.com/9cyeq - US ZNet - Url.:  http://tinyurl.com/hyv52 - Google search Url.:  http://tinyurl.com/e7uw5

* 'The war in Iraq is illegal' - BBC: video & text-interview of the United Nation's Secretary General Kofi Annan - Url.:  http://tinyurl.com/5pl2v

* The Nuremberg principles: "Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment." - Url.:   http://tinyurl.com/byurp

* Reference guide to the Geneva Conventions - Url.:   http://www.genevaconventions.org

ICC - COURT INFORMATION: The ICC’s press release on the DRC arrest warrants can be found on the Court’s website at:  http://www.icc-cpi.int/press/pressreleases/132.html

The OTP press release is available at  http://www.icc-cpi.int/press/pressreleases/133.html.

FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
 http://forpressfound.blogspot.com/
Editor: Henk Ruyssenaars
 http://tinyurl.com/amn3q
The Netherlands
 fpf@chello.nl

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