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Special prosecutor for CIA interrogations urged

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Tuesday called on US Attorney General Eric Holder to commission a special prosecutor  to investigate tactics used by CIA interrogators against terrorism suspects. ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said in a letter to Holder that recently published characterizations of CIA methods as torture by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), combined with other evidence, obligated the attorney general to investigate the allegations. Romero said that those suspected in engaging in or facilitating torture should then be prosecuted under the War Crimes Act and the Anti-Torture Act, and that the statute of limitations for some of the alleged offenses would expire in less than a year: There Is Broad Authority to Investigate and Prosecute Torture Crimes, Including Any Crimes in Ordering or Authorizing Torture: Based on prior government investigations, documents obtained by the ACLU through our FOIA litigation, and numerous media reports, there is credible evidence that acts authorized, ordered, and committed by government officials constitute violations of federal criminal statutes. Although the political debate about whether acts such as waterboarding are torture has caused confusion in some press accounts, waterboarding and other forms of torture and abuse clearly violate existing federal criminal laws, including the War Crimes Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2441, the Anti-Torture Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2340-2340A, and federal statutes that criminalize conduct such as assaults by or against U.S. nationals in overseas facilities used by the federal government. There also are numerous federal criminal laws against obstructing or interfering with government investigations or court proceedings.Romero went on to say that current efforts to investigate the interrogations were too weak to hold offenders accountable, and that only a special prosecutor sanctioned by the attorney general could effectively investigate the allegations. Earlier this month, the CIA admitted to destroying 92 tapes of interrogations of the "high-value" detainees, later admitting that 12 of the destroyed tapes included evidence of "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" (EIT). Rights groups and experts on torture have long criticized the US for its use of EIT, and US President Barack Obama in January issued an executive order explicitly banning the use of waterboarding and other techniques that do no comport with Geneva Convention safeguards for prisoners of war.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on March 18, 2009 (boomark / email).