UNLV’s Bybee signed torture documents

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Thursday, June 10, 2004 | 11:13 a.m.

SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON -- Justice Department documents that advised the White House that torturing captured al-Qaida terrorists "may be justified," were signed off by Jay Bybee, a former constitutional law professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Boyd Law School, who is now a federal judge.

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that Bybee signed an August 2002 Justice Department memo that says torture "must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death."

An administration official confirmed for the Sun that Bybee signed the 50-page memo.

Bybee was on leave from UNLV's Boyd School of law to serve as a constitutional adviser to Attorney General John Ascroft before being a confirmed a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge in March 2003.