PESHAWAR, April 30: The federal government has refused to allow the Japan-based International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan (ICTA) to hold a public hearing in Islamabad on Wednesday to collect evidence of war crimes against US President George Bush during the Afghan war.

Speaking at a press conference at the Peshawar Press Club on Wednesday, co-representative of the ICTA Prof Akira Maeda said his organization was to hold a public hearing against President Bush at a hotel in Islamabad but the authorities denied them permission. He said this would have been the 7th public hearing against the US president.

Prof Maeda said the government might not want to expose the US government’s war crimes in Afghanistan as it could hurt relations between Islamabad and Washington and perhaps that was why the tribunal was not allowed to conduct hearing.

He said: “The Pakistan government’s decision caused great disappointment. Our main purpose is to give a peace message to the international community, stop the US government from violent behaviour and pay compensation to the war victims.”

He said public hearings against President Bush would be held in other parts of the world including America.

The ICTA had already conducted public hearings in Tokyo, Osaka, Shibuya, Kobe, Hachioji and planned to hold the seventh hearing in Islamabad in collaboration with the Revolutionary Association for Women of Afghanistan (RAWA). The organization is scheduled to hold next hearing in Yokohama (Japan) on May 31.

According to the chargesheet prepared by the ICTA, the first charge against president Bush is that he, “individually or jointly with other members, planned and instigated illegal attack in Afghanistan, ordering US forces to invade Afghanistan on October 7, 2001.”

The second charge is that the military action caused a huge number of refugees and internally-displaced persons in Afghanistan and Pakistan near the border. Depending on the information sources, the number varies from several hundred thousands to several millions.

Thirdly, the US-UK forces dropped cluster bombs, daisy cutters, used bunker-busters that killed and injured a large number of civilians.

Hundreds of Taliban POWs were killed in the midst of an uprising at the Qala-i-Janghi camp and the Amnesty International warned that the incident could be a violation of the international law.

It said the international concerns over the US government’s inhuman treatment of suspected terrorists grow who have been detained at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and the transfer of Al Qaeda fighters captured in Afghanistan to Cuba was also a questionable practice.