US revises definition of torture

• U.S. Replaces Memo on Torture with New Guidelines

The Justice Department has published a revised and expansive definition of acts that constitute torture under domestic and international law, overtly repudiating one of the most criticized policy memorandums drafted during President Bush's first term. In a statement published on the department's website late Thursday, the head of its Office of Legal Counsel declares that ''torture is abhorrent both to American law and values and international norms." The statement goes on to reject a previous statement that only ''organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death" constitute torture punishable by law. That earlier definition of torture figured prominently in complaints by Democrats and human rights groups about White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, who oversaw its creation and is Bush's nominee to become attorney general for the second term. The new memo's public release came a week before the start of Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Gonzales's nomination. The new document also omits two assertions made in an earlier version: that Bush, as a wartime chief executive, had the authority to permit acts barred by US laws against torture, and that US personnel following executive orders involving torture had legal defenses against criminal liability. The new memo states that torture violates US and international law. The administration's legal document defining torture was first written in 2002, before the Iraqi prison abuse scandal became public. [more]

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