US interrogation tactics were torture: former State Department lawyer News
US interrogation tactics were torture: former State Department lawyer

[JURIST] Former US State Department (DOS) [official website] lawyer Vijay Padmanabhan [faculty profile] criticized the administration of former president George W. Bush for approving the use of extreme interrogation techniques against terrorism suspects, in an interview [AP report] with the Associated Press reported Friday. Padmanabhan, who now teaches at Cardozo School of Law in New York, served as the DOS's chief counsel on Guantanamo Bay and Iraq [JURIST news archive] detentions, and said that he believed the interrogation tactics used against some detainees constituted torture. He said the Bush administration was wrong to argue that the detainees were not protected by Geneva Convention [materials] rights, and that the tactics were an overreaction to the 9/11 attacks against the US.

Earlier this month, excerpts from a previously-undisclosed report by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) [official website] characterizing tactics used against terrorism suspects at Guantanamo as torture [text; JURIST report] were published in the New York Review of Books. Also this month, former Colin Powell [JURIST news archive] aide Lawrence Wilkerson criticized the Bush administration for arbitrarily detaining innocent civilians at the base [Washington Notes blog post; JURIST report].

THIS DAY @ LAW

Line of Demarcation divides the New World between Spain and Portugal

On May 4, 1493, Pope Alexander VI promulgated the Line of Demarcation, dividing the New World between Spain and Portugal in response the return of Christopher Columbus from his discovery of the American continents. However, neither country was entirely satisfied with the placement of the Line. A year later on June 7, 1494, the two nations signed the Treaty of Tordesillas, which moved the Line of Demarcation further west, giving Portugal claim to Brazil.

Kent State student shootings precipitated lawsuits

On May 4, 1970, National Guardsmen at Kent State University opened fire on students protesting the US invasion of Cambodia, killing four.

Review a legal chronology of the Kent State shootings, from May 5, 1970 (the day the FBI investigation started) to January 4, 1979 (the day the state of Ohio reached an out-of-court settlement for $675,000 with victims and relatives of victims).