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Friday, November 19, 2004

Bush torture policies: Bringing the war back home 

Since Bush—with silence, a wink, and a smirk—decreed that torture is now national policy (shamefully abetted (back) by the gutless, feckless Beltway Dems), it was only a matter of time before people a lot lower in the executive branch got the same idea:

A federal prosecutor in Alexandria made a comment last year suggesting that a Falls Church man held in a Saudi Arabian prison had been tortured, according to a sworn affidavit from a defense lawyer that was recently filed in federal court in Washington.

The alleged remark by Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon D. Kromberg occurred during a conversation with the lawyer, Salim Ali, in the federal courthouse in Alexandria, according to Ali's affidavit. The document was filed Oct. 12 in connection with a petition by the parents of the detained man, Ahmed Abu Ali, who are seeking his release from Saudi custody.

Ahmed Abu Ali, a student from Falls Church, has been held without charge by Saudis since June 2003.

The lawyer stated in the affidavit that he asked Kromberg about bringing Abu Ali back to the United States to face charges so as "to avoid the torture that goes on in Saudi Arabia."

[Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon D.] Kromberg "smirked and stated that 'He's no good for us here, he has no fingernails left,' " Salim Ali wrote in his affidavit, adding: "I did not know how to respond [to] the appalling statement he made, and we subsequently ceased our discussion about Ahmed Abu Ali."
(via WaPo)

Nice, eh?

Oh, and Kromberg did his little bit to help out with the winger coup against Clinton as an Associate Independent Counsel on the Morgan Guananty Trust fiasco. So we already know he has a strong stomach; now strong enough to smirk at acts of torture and make jokes about them.

Of course, it can't happen here. Right? You could ask him, of course, like any citizen:

Gordon D Kromberg
Firm: US Attorney's Office, Eastern District of Virginia
Address: 2100 Jamieson Ave, Alexandria, VA 22314-5794
Phone: (703) 299-3700
Fax: (703) 299-2584

I can't find an email address for Kromberg, or his office. Readers?

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