Campaigners seek arrest of former CIA legal chief over Pakistan drone attacks

Amid growing concern around the world over the use of drones, lawyers and relatives of some of those killed are seeking an international arrest warrant for John Rizzo, until recently acting general counsel for the American intelligence agency.

Opponents of drones say the unmanned aircraft are responsible for the deaths of up to 2,500 Pakistanis in 260 attacks since 2004. US officials say the vast majority of those killed are "militants". Earlier this week 48 people were killed in two strikes on tribal regions of Pakistan. The American definition of "militant" has been disputed by relatives and campaigners.

The attempt to seek an international arrest warrant for Rizzo is being led by the British human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith of the campaign group Reprieve, and lawyers in Pakistan. The lawyers are also building cases against other individuals, including drone operators interviewed or photographed during organised press facilities.
A first information report, the first step in seeking a prosecution of Rizzo in Pakistan, will be formally lodged early next week at a police station in the capital, Islamabad, on behalf of relatives of two people killed in drone strikes in 2009. The report will also allege Rizzo should be charged with conspiracy to murder a large number of Pakistani citizens.

Now retired, Rizzo, 63, is being pursued after admitting in an interview with the magazine Newsweek that since 2004 he had approved one drone attack order a month on targets in Pakistan, even though the US is not at war with the country.
Rizzo, who was by his own admission "up to my eyeballs" in approving CIA use of "enhanced interrogation techniques", said in the interview that the CIA operated "a hit list". He also asked: "How many law professors have signed off on a death warrant?"



More:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/15/cia-usa

I wish these attorneys all success. There must be an end put to this indescribably barbaric practice.

:hi:
sw

because of the Yemen drone attack

Why not go to the place where the authorizations to indiscriminately kill innocent women and children have their genesis? Why can't people understand that if they'll do it to others in a foreign land, they'll http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/01/23-6">eventually do it to us here at home?

- It's just a matter of time.....


"The guilt of criminality attaches to those responsible. ‘Well,’ said the Aga Khan, ‘fish goes rotten by the head.’" -- (1915 W. S. Churchill Letter 3 Dec. in M. Gilbert Winston S. Churchill (1972) III. Compan. II. 1309)

K&R

who made torture possible.

Marcy Wheeler:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/05/18/torture/index.html

He stuck around for a while under Panetta as acting legal advisor- was there when formative decisions were being made about "no witchhunts and moving forward."

April 23, 2009 11:00 AM
Why is John Rizzo working in the Obama administration?
By John Amato

http://crooksandliars.com/taxonomy/term/5232,5231

Not sure when he retired. Sound like later in 2009 (or early 2010 at latest)



By WALTER PINCUS
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/10/AR2010051004573.html

The whole chapter of the destruction of the CIA Torture Tapes.

A compilation at TPM:

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/cia_tapes/