U.N. Official: Obama's Decision Not to Prosecute Torture Violates International Law

By GottaLaff

If it isn't one thing, it's another:

President Barack Obama's decision not to prosecute CIA operatives who used questionable interrogation practices violates international law, the U.N.'s top torture investigator said Saturday. [...]

In a brief telephone interview with The Associated Press, Manfred Nowak, an Austrian who serves as a U.N. special rapporteur in Geneva, said the United States had committed itself under the U.N. Convention against Torture to make torture a crime and to prosecute those suspected of engaging in it.

"They are party to the convention and the convention is very, very clear," Nowak said when asked to confirm comments contained in an interview he gave Austria's Der Standard newspaper. "The fact that you carried out an order doesn't relieve you of your responsibility," he said, adding it could be a mitigating factor.

Nowak, who said he would soon travel to Washington for meetings with officials, also called for a comprehensive independent investigation into the matter and added it was important to compensate the victims.

"Now we need to know all the facts -- not just bits and pieces," Nowak said. "First you need the truth and then you need justice."

One way or another, there will be repercussions for BushCo's war crimes. Will Nowak's statements be enough to get the ball rolling?