Reply #49: ABC: 'Torture' Could Haunt Bush Officials

[L. Coyote]

'Torture' Could Haunt Bush Officials
Spanish Judge Who Went After Pinochet Considers Charges for Gonzales, Others
By HILARY BROWN
March 29, 2009 - http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=7203966&page=1


In what may turn out to be a landmark case, a Spanish court has started a criminal investigation into allegations that six former officials in the Bush administration violated international law by creating the legal justification for torture in Guantanamo Bay.

The officials named in the 98-page complaint include former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who once famously described the Geneva Conventions as "quaint" and "obsolete."

Others include John Yoo, a former Justice Department lawyer who wrote the so-called "torture memo" that justified waterboarding and other extreme interrogation methods for terror suspects.

Also named are: former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith; former General Counsel for the Department of Defense William Haynes II; Jay S. Bybee, formerly of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel; and David S. Addington, former chief of staff and legal advisor to former Vice President Dick Cheney.