International Tribunals (Sierra Leone) Bill [HL]

My Lords, one of the books I have read over the past 12 months which most impressed me was Simon Schama’s Rough Crossings. It is about the episode at the end of the great revolutionary war in the United States when slaves—freed as a result of promises made to them by the British when coming over to our side—were first dumped in Nova Scotia, but then, as a result of the efforts of the two Clarkson brothers, taken to Freetown. There they initially created the first community in the world with universal franchise: both men and women voting. Unfortunately, that initial promise was not borne out in the subsequent history of Sierra Leone. We know about the tragic episode of the civil war touched on by the Minister. I join him in echoing the congratulations to our forces on how they heroically restored order there and to all those concerned with the effective help given to Sierra Leone in restoring a functioning democracy. I echo what the Minister said about the assistance we have consistently given in building up a system that will enable war criminals and those guilty of crimes against humanity to be brought before international tribunals and punished for their serious offences. On the face of it, the Bill is a simple measure to permit the detention of Mr Charles Taylor, the former President of Liberia, to serve in a UK prison any sentence that may be imposed on him by the special court for Sierra Leone. We have no objection to that in principle and fully support the idea that where there is evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity the alleged perpetrators should be tried either in the courts of their own country or from now on before the International Criminal Court. As has been hinted, this will probably be the last tribunal of its kind before that court takes such cases. Inthe mean time, we supported the establishment of the ICTY and the ICTR by the United Nations and the arrangements that were made for special courts in Cambodia and Sierra Leone, which were later approved, although not initiated, by the Security Council. I hope that it will not be so easy for those who commit these offences in future to enjoy a peaceful and luxurious retirement in some third country. That does not mean to say that we are entirely satisfied with the operations of the Special Courtfor Sierra Leone and we would like to hear the Government’s views on the report of the independent expert, Judge Antonio Cassese. I hope that the Minister has received notification of my questions on this issue, particularly on which of Judge Cassese’s recommendations are being implemented. As there are quite a few conclusions, there may not be time to cover them all, but it would be particularly useful to hear what the Minister thinks about the financial insecurity arising from the unpredictability of the voluntary contributions that have financed the court, making it difficult to recruit good staff, and whether the timetable suggested by Judge Cassese is realistic. Judgment is expected in the other cases by mid-2008, but in Mr Taylor’s case, not for another year after that. If there is an appeal, Judge Cassese thinks that it might be dealt with by the end of 2009, and the SCSL would then be wound up. I think that that answers the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, about further trials before the tribunal. This case would be the last. Judge Cassese deals with some of the problems relating to Charles Taylor’s trial in particular. He says that as it is starting so much later than the others, it is of central importance to the success of the special court that it should run smoothly. Unfortunately, there have been some problems already, of which the most serious is that moving the trial from Freetownto The Hague not only deprives the court of the advantage of being located in the territory where the crimes were committed, but creates a complicatedand expensive logistical nightmare, with a new special court office, redeployment of staff, relocation ofthe trial chamber, transfer of witnesses and the establishment of an enhanced special court presence in Liberia. Communications between the special court staff in The Hague and Freetown, and betweenthe special court and the ICC, which is providing detention facilities for Mr Taylor as well as the courtroom and presumably offices and storage for defence and prosecution, need to be fully established. The decision to hold Mr Taylor’s trial at The Hague was made, according to the briefing note kindly provided by the Government, as a result of serious concerns that the defendant’s continued presence in Sierra Leone posed a considerable and immediate threat to regional security. The Minister said today that he had seen evidence to that effect which he regarded as significant. The Governments of Sierra Leone and Liberia and the UN Secretary-General called for the trial to be held outside the region. Mr Taylor was not said to present any threat to regional stability when he was resident in Nigeria for three years before he was renditioned by President Obasanjo in March 2006, and, as far as I am aware, there were no demonstrations or activities in the seven weeks he was in Freetown before being moved to The Hague on 20 June. I have not been able to find any evidence of the supposed threat, and none was published by the UN. Since the defence application for a hearing on the change of venue was denied by the court, no evidence has been heard on the matter, but a civil society amicus curiae brief, which I hope the Minister has seen, submitted to the court points out that the late Hinga Norman—he was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson—who had a great deal of influence as the head of an ethnic militia, had been on trial for some years up to the time of his death without any evidence linking him with moves to cause instability in Sierra Leone. The civil society brief expected the same would be true of Mr Taylor. It emphasised that victims of the atrocities committed in Sierra Leone wanted the alleged perpetrators to be dealt with locally, not in Europe, and it is indeed an insult to the victims and to Africa to remove these proceedings to another continent. One unfortunate consequence of Mr Taylor’s removal to The Hague has been that the ICC sought to impose its own rules on his conditions of detention. They included the placement of a surveillance video camera in the room where consultations were held with his defence lawyers on the grounds that that rule applied to its own detainee, Thomas Lubanga, who is to be tried on offences committed in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Lubanga’s defence lawyer protested, and the ICC’s pre-trial judges ordered their registrar to remove his cameras towards the end of last year. Perversely, the registrar removed the cameras from Lubanga’s room, but kept them in Taylor’s, for a month after the SCSI had ordered their removal, prompting the lawyers acting on behalf of Mr Taylor to withdraw from consultations between 7 March and 22 March, when the ICC finally caved in. That delay may not be the last arising from potential conflicts between the rules of the ICC and those of the SCSL, although Judge Richard Goldstone, the distinguished former war crimes prosecutor, says that: "““SCSL judges have to be completely in charge of all procedures and rules that apply””," to Mr Taylor. I agree with that opinion. As a result of the chilling effect on the consultations with Mr Taylor, as well as the 18-day gap, defence counsel have not surprisingly asked for the trial’s start date to be postponed. They have also complained of being handicapped by being allowed only a single international investigator on a six-month contract—which is unlikely to be renewed—compared with the 10 allotted to the prosecution, and we need to be told whether this has been given serious consideration, as suggested by Judge Cassese. However, the court has no money beyond June, and there are certain to be huge pressures for adherence to the planned start date, which have everything to do with financial expediency and the need to persuade donors to fund its continued existence and nothing to do with equality of arms between the prosecution and the defence. There is no doubt that war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed on a horrendous scale in Sierra Leone before and after 30 November 1996, the date from which the allegations in the indictment run, and it is right and proper that those alleged to be responsible should stand trial. However, I regret that, in this one case only, the international community has seen fit to remove the proceedings from Africa, at great and unnecessary expense, to the detriment of the fairness of the trial and without any consultation with the African Union, which, I believe, would have opposed the decision if it had been asked. I say that because in the case of former President of Chad, Hissene Habré, who was charged in Belgium with war crimes, crimes against humanity and torture, the AU decided that he should be tried in Senegal rather than extradited, and the Senegalese national assembly enacted a law allowing its courts to deal with these offences wherever they had been committed. I have heard no suggestion that Mr Habré’s trial will jeopardise the stability of the region. The issue may go beyond the question of whether, if convicted, Mr Taylor should serve his sentence in an English or Welsh prison. But if the international community had not unthinkingly accepted the proposition that Mr Taylor’s presence in a Sierra Leone courtroom or jail somehow represented a threat to the security of the whole region, the Bill would not have come before your Lordships today.In agreeing to the Bill, we should at least recognisethat that assumption itself impairs the possibility thatMr Taylor will receive a completely fair trial and that removing the delivery of justice on African crime to Europe will delay Africa's acquisition of the capacity to deal with the legal aftermath of its several internal conflicts.