[NYTr] Padilla Sues the Loathesome Law Prof. Yoo Who Help Craft Bush Torture Policy

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by MichaelP - Jan 5, 2008

The Jurist Paperchase Newsburst - Jan 4, 2008
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2008/01/padilla-sues-law-professor-who-helped.php

PAPER CHASE NEWSBURST  -- Friday, January 04, 2008

PADILLA SUES LAW PROFESSOR WHO HELPED FRAME BUSH 'TORTURE' POLICY

by Mike Rosen-Molina

[JURIST] --  Convicted  terrorism  conspirator  Jose Padilla (See:
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/pdf/yoofiling.doc  Friday filed suit
(See complaint and ress release here:
http://howappealing.law.com/PadillaVsYooComplaint.pdf
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/pdf/yoofiling.doc )
in the US  District  Court  for the Northern District of California
against University of California - Berkeley law professor John Yoo,
the author of controversial US government memos arguing that detained
enemy combatants could be denied Geneva Conventions protections
against torture. 

The  suit alleges  that  Yoo's memos, written while  he  was  a senior
lawyer in the US Justice Department, helped set the Bush
administration's policy that terrorism detainees are not protected by
the Geneva Conventions. The Chicago Tribune has more here:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-padilla080104,1,6749180.story

In a January 2002 memo co-authored by Yoo while working for the 
Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel called "Application of 
Treaties and Laws to al Qaeda and Taliban Detainees", Yoo contended
that because Guantanamo Bay detainees had no status under US federal
law, "as a result, any customary international law of armed conflict in
no way binds, as a legal matter, the President or the US Armed Forces
concerning the detention or trial of members of al Qaeda and the
Taliban."  (Memo here: http://lawofwar.org/Yoo_Delahunty_Memo.htm )

Yoo also worked on an August 2002 memo that argued there was no
law that could prevent the president from theoretically ordering
torture.  (See: http://pview.findlaw.com/view/1505800_1 )

In 2004, Yoo published an op-ed entitled :Terrorists Have No
Geneva Rights" in the Wall Street Journal.  See:
http://www.aei.org/news/filter.,newsID.20589/news_detail.asp .