Case Western war-crimes expert challenges Bush lawyers on torture

My article about Michael Scharf, war-crimes expert at Case Western's law school, appears in Cleveland Magazine's March issue and is online now.

Scharf advised the judges on the Saddam Hussein trial and co-wrote a book about it, titled Enemy of the State. He's helping Uganda prepare to prosecute a murderous, child-enslaving rebel and advising Cambodian judges how to try leaders of the Khmer Rouge, architects of the 1970s "killing fields."

In his next book, Scharf will take on the Bush Administration lawyers who wrote the "torture memos," which gave official approval to extreme interrogation techniques. He says several Bush Administration officials need to avoid travel to western Europe and Argentina, or risk arrest for violating a key torture treaty. "I think there’s a legal case that they committed crimes," he says.