Berkeley City Council Calls for UCB to prosecute John Yoo for War Crimes

Berkeley city council urges U.S. to prosecute former Bush official

Carolyn Jones, Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

(12-09) 11:19 PST Berkeley -- After an emotional, fiery debate over academic freedom and torture, Berkeley's city council passed a measure late Monday night imploring the U.S. to prosecute Berkeley resident and former White House official John Yoo for war crimes.

Yoo, a tenured professor at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, wrote the legal memos justifying torture while interrogating terrorism suspects while he served as Deputy Assistant Attorney general for the Bush administration in 2001-03.

"John Yoo took a material involvement in the deaths and torture of untold numbers of people," said city councilman Max Anderson, choking back tears during the council's debate. "The broken bodies, the broken spirits, the broken trust he wrought with his actions - that's why they call these crimes against humanity."

Yoo was not available for comment Tuesday.

The council stopped short of passing the full original measure, put forth by the Peace and Justice Commission, which called for the city to urge UC Berkeley to re-arrange its class schedule so no student would be required to take a course from Yoo.

"I don't think we should be dictating course policy to the University," said city councilman Laurie Capitelli.

Yoo teaches constitutional and international law at Boalt, but he won't be in Berkeley much longer. He was appointed in September to be a visiting professor at Chapman University in Orange County, serving from January to May 2009.

E-mail Carolyn Jones at carolynjones@sfchronicle.com.

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