Diplomats Discuss Libya's Future as Italy Plots Gaddafi's Escape Route
THE GUARDIAN: Rome is negotiating an African haven for the Libyan leader as international pressure mounts on him to go

Efforts appear to be under way to offer Muammar Gaddafi a way of escape from Libya, with Italy saying it was trying to organise an African haven for him, and the US signalling it would not try to stop the dictator from fleeing.

The move came amid mounting diplomatic and military pressure on Gaddafi as Britain tries to assemble a global consensus demanding he surrender power while intensifying air strikes against his forces. An international conference in London – including the UN, Arab states, the African Union, and more than 40 foreign ministers – will focus on co-ordinating assistance in the face of a possible humanitarian disaster and building a unified international front in condemnation of the Gaddafi regime and in support of Nato-led military action in Libya.

On the eve of the conference, Italy offered to broker a ceasefire deal in Libya, involving asylum for Gaddafi in an African country. "Gaddafi must understand that it would be an act of courage to say: 'I understand that I have to go'," said the Italian foreign minister, Franco Frattini. "We hope that the African Union can find a valid proposal."

A senior American official signalled that a solution in which Gaddafi flees to a country beyond the reach of the international criminal court (ICC), which is investigating war crimes charges against him, would be acceptable to Washington, pointing out that Barack Obama had repeatedly called on Gaddafi to leave. » | Julian Borger and Richard Norton-Taylor | Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Nazis Were Given ‘Safe Haven’ in U.S., Report Says
Dr. Josef Mengele in 1956, left. Arthur Rudolph, center, in 1990, was a rocket scientist for Nazi Germany and NASA. John Demjanjuk in 2006. Photos: The New York Times
THE NEW YORK TIMES: WASHINGTON — A secret history of the United States government’s Nazi-hunting operation concludes that American intelligence officials created a “safe haven” in the United States for Nazis and their collaborators after World War II, and it details decades of clashes, often hidden, with other nations over war criminals here and abroad.

The 600-page report, which the Justice Department has tried to keep secret for four years, provides new evidence about more than two dozen of the most notorious Nazi cases of the last three decades.

It describes the government’s posthumous pursuit of Dr. Josef Mengele, the so-called Angel of Death at Auschwitz, part of whose scalp was kept in a Justice Department official’s drawer; the vigilante killing of a former Waffen SS soldier in New Jersey; and the government’s mistaken identification of the Treblinka concentration camp guard known as Ivan the Terrible.

The report catalogs both the successes and failures of the band of lawyers, historians and investigators at the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations, which was created in 1979 to deport Nazis.

Perhaps the report’s most damning disclosures come in assessing the Central Intelligence Agency’s involvement with Nazi émigrés. Scholars and previous government reports had acknowledged the C.I.A.’s use of Nazis for postwar intelligence purposes. But this report goes further in documenting the level of American complicity and deception in such operations.

The Justice Department report, describing what it calls “the government’s collaboration with persecutors,” says that O.S.I investigators learned that some of the Nazis “were indeed knowingly granted entry” to the United States, even though government officials were aware of their pasts. “America, which prided itself on being a safe haven for the persecuted, became — in some small measure — a safe haven for persecutors as well,” it said. >>> Eric Lichtblau | Saturday, November 13, 2010

”Sweden Safe Haven for War Criminals”
STOCKHOLM NEWS: Amnesty International criticises Sweden for a wide range of obstacles to prosecutions and extraditions of such crimes as genocide, crime against humanity, war crime and torture.

In a report with special focus on Sweden Amnesty finds a number of gaps in the national legal framework. Several international crimes are not defined as crimes under Swedish law; principles of criminal responsibility are not defined in accordance with the strictest requirements of international law and criminals who have committed these serious crime [sic] are covered by statutes of limitation.

Around 1500 war criminals is [sic] believed to live in Sweden. If the laws are not changed, they could go free from any persecution, Amnesty writes. 



Sweden consistently takes a strong stance against impunity for the most serious crimes in international fora. But the same commitment is not shown at home. >>> David Jonasson | Tuesday, February 3, 2009

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback & Hardback – Sweden) >>>