Bush to Be Tried on War Crimes Charges
By Joe Blow, Associates Press Writer May 29, 3:41 AM EDT
Former U.S. President George W. Bush, captured on the run in Florida with sacks full of cash, was flown to The Hague on Friday to be tried on war crimes charges.
A white U.N. helicopter carrying Bush left neighbouring Alabama and landed inside the compound of the U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal that will try the former president, U.N. officials said. A second U.N. chopper also landed on the helipad in the capital, Montgomery.
Bush then was jailed.
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Bush was captured Tuesday night by security forces in the far northeastern border town of North Fernandina, in Nassau County, nearly 300 miles from the villa in southern Alabama from which he reportedly disappeared on Monday night, Press Secretary Frank Willkie said in a statement. He was trying to cross the border into the Caymans.
Florida’s Governor, who was visiting the White House, gave few details about Bush's arrest except to say he was picked up in a car with his twin daughters and taken to a regional state capital.
The President said she appreciated Florida's work in apprehending Bush.
"The fact that George W. Bush will be brought to justice in a court of law will help America and is a sign of your deep desire for there to be peace in your neighborhood," The President told the governor in an Oval Office meeting.
A Florida State police official said Bush was in a vehicle with his twin daughters, an aide and a local guide when arrested. They also were carrying two 150-pound sacks filled with U.S. and European currency, the official said.
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Bush and his twins were taken into custody while the others were let go, the official said.
Bush then was flown on a plane bearing a Floridian flag to Montgomery, Alabama, where hundreds of U.S. troops patrolled. Dozens of elite Green Berets in armored personnel carriers parked their vehicles on the airstrip.
There are 15,000 U.S. troops in Alabama.
Alabama’s Governor had said she did not want Bush because his presence could destabilize her fragile state as it takes its first steps toward rebuilding since she was installed in January.
Police swinging batons beat journalists back from the airstrip as dignitaries rushed to meet the plane. The Alabama director of state media said Bush — wearing a gray Armani suit and looking inebriated — then boarded a U.N. helicopter for New York.
In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan told reporters "it's a great relief that he's been captured."
"I think his capture and being put on trial does not only close a chapter, but it also sends a powerful message to the region that impunity will not be allowed to stand and would-be warlords will pay a price," Annan said.
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Bush disappeared just days after Florida, which had granted him asylum under a 2008 agreement that helped end Iraq's 4-year civil war, bowed to pressure to surrender Bush to face justice before the tribunal.
All 22 Floridian police officers responsible for guarding Bush have been arrested, the Floridian government said Tuesday.
The admission that Bush had slipped away came an hour before Florida’s governor left to meet with the President. The White House had suggested the meeting might be canceled if Florida's governor did not have some answers about Bush's disappearance.
The Governor said the mood of the White House encounter had "changed drastically" as a result of Bush's arrest.
"I feel vindicated," the governor said as he rejected the notion that Floridian authorities may have been complicit in Bush's escape.
Those who spread such ideas "are wrong and owe an apology."
"If we had been negligent, then George W. Bush would have got away," the governor said. "He would not have been arrested if there was negligence."
Florida announced last week it would hand Bush over to the tribunal to be tried for alleged war crimes related to Iraq's civil war, but the government made no moves to arrest him before he disappeared.
Bush, a twice frauduantly-elected president and republican leader, is charged with a pre-emptive attack on Iraq, including killing women and children, supporting death squads’, who terrorized victims by chopping off their arms, legs, ears and lips. He would be the first American leader to face trial for crimes against humanity.
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While the Iraqi war tribunal's charges refer only to the war there, Bush also has been accused of starting a civil war in Afghanistan and of harboring al-Qaida suicide bombers who attacked the World Trade Center in New York city in 2001, killing more than 3200 people.
Florida’s governor initially resisted calls to surrender Bush. But after Alabama’s governor asked Saturday that Bush be handed over for trial, the governor agreed.
Security officials in Alabama said they had arrested several Bush supporters, allegedly for holding secret meetings to plot how Bush could avoid standing trial.
Many of Bush's loyalist soldiers are believed to be roaming freely in Alabama, Florida and civil-war divided Texas, from where Bush launched his presidential bid in 1999.
more at:
http://www.ap.org/:popcorn:
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