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US memo drafters were complicit in torture, UN torture monitor says
Apr 24, 2009, 12:38 GMT
Vienna - United States officials who drafted policies on harsh interrogation tactics for terrorism suspects should be prosecuted as accomplices in torture, the United Nation's monitor on torture Manfred Nowak said Friday in Vienna.
Nowak was reacting to the announcement by US President Barack Obama on Tuesday that he would let Attorney General Eric Holder, the chief of the the US Justice Department, decide whether to investigate those who drafted the legal memos during the Bush administration.
The UN Special Rapporteur on torture criticized Obama last week for his decision not to prosecute CIA interrogators who justified their techniques with these memos.
'If you read them, and then see in what kind of detail specific torture methods such as water boarding, long-term isolation, stress positions, et cetera have been described there,' Nowak said about the memos, 'it kind of reminded me of the criminal procedure codes that were common in Europe during the Middle Ages.'
Talking to reporters, Nowak argued that the US is bound to the UN Convention against torture, which mandates countries to prosecute acts of complicity or participation in torture, such as drafting the policies.
The Austrian human rights expert lauded Obama for abolishing the interrogation techniques and closing the Guantanamo prison camp and said he trusted the president to start a full investigation.
But if the US did not prosecute those responsible, all other countries that are party to the torture convention are obliged under the legal concept of 'universal jurisdiction' to try US torturers and accomplices if they enter their territory, he said.
A US Senate committee is currently investigating the torture issue, but many Democrats would like to see an independent commission to probe the matter.
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Older Talkback
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How's your legal opinion, did your lawyer tell you to plead guilty to those drug charges and get it over with?
I think that US civilian and military leaders should be tried before a war crimes tribunal for human rights abuses committed in far away lands.
My opinion: the verdict should be a firing squad.
should not be tried as accomplices, but as co-conspirators. That would carry a heavier penalty.
suffered torture for the 8 years under Bush!
NO, no, no, no no! We don't need no libnazi biassed MSM or stinking commie dominated UN to tell us what torture is. What torture is, depends upon what the definition if 'is' is. The law got changed by our guys, so now torture occurs only when some grave permanent physical damage or death results. There was no torture, only 'enhanced interrogation'. What our guys did to get the info was like bringing a kid to a candy shoppe and giving him a lollipop. Only the anti-american MSM wants to claim otherwise.
And it don't make me wrong to say it.
...maybe THEY will all end up in Montana....that'd be punishment enough.
'...you've been convicted of conspiring to commit torture...true, no statute exists against it, or every cop in LA would be behind bars...true..the worst thing done was slightly more than a bitch slap...so we're going to send you to Deer Lodge..'.
the sentence...death by boredom....maybe the anti-capital punishment folks can get an early start....
It takes a REAL man to live in Montana, SP, so that lets you out!
...where men are men and sheep are nervous. Oregonians love Montana sheep jokes.
Honestly, I love Montana, in fact, I f--king love the west, I just have a friend who reads this site and so I get to jab him. His Dad was from Deer Lodge. Used to be a famous Whore House there, along with the state prison. It was featured in 'a river runs through it'.
Terrorists...just how scared do you actually think a real Montanian is? If it were me, I'd send em to Dead Horse, AK.
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SP4: FascinatingApr 24th, 2009 - 15:56:16
...being tried for a legal opinion...god, if they'd only try Clinton's lawyer...
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