Law school dean wants war crimes trial: Dean talks of hanging president if convicted

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June 26, 2008

By Brian Messenger

The dean of an Andover law school hopes to see the prosecution of President George Bush and top members of his administration for war crimes, even going as far as stating that, if found guilty, the officials should be hanged.

If Lawrence Velvel has his way, a movement to try Washington's top officials will be advanced on Federal Street in Andover, from the campus of the Massachusetts School of Law, of which Velvel is both dean and cofounder.

Velvel has already made international headlines with his intentions to hold a two-day conference at the law school this September to begin planning the case against President George W. Bush and others within his administration.

"For George Bush, Richard Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and Henry Kissinger to swing, or even for them to spend years in jail, would be a powerful lesson to future American leaders," Velvel writes in the statement outlining his conference, which is titled "Planning for the Prosecution of High Level American War Criminals." The conference is scheduled for Sept. 13 and 14.

Velvel went on to write that both Germany or Japan experienced significant changes in foreign policy after 1946, when World War II leaders from both countries were tried in Nuremburg and Tokyo and eventually hanged for war crimes.

"We must try to have them held accountable in courts of law," writes Velvel, referring to U.S. leaders. "And we must insist on appropriate punishments, including, if guilt is found, the hangings visited upon top Germans and Japanese."

Neither Velvel or any Massachusetts School of Law employee would comment directly on the conference, though Sherwood Ross, a Miami-based media consultant working for the law school, said the "top echelon of the Bush administration," including the president himself, would be the target of any future prosecution.

"The dean has said that this is not an academic discussion," said Ross. "The dean has said this will be an organized effort. There will probably be many groups that independently will have reached the same conclusion, that war crimes have been committed and that something needs to be done about it."

The news was first announced June 17 on the Web site www.opednews.com, and later picked up by the ABA Journal, the magazine of the American Bar Association, and two days later by the Web site of the Los Angeles Times.

By June 24, a news Web site in New Zealand had posted Velvel's latest comments about the event.

Ross said the response from Velvel's announcement of the conference has been "overwhelmingly favorable," though the reactions of some Andover residents and Massachusetts School of Law graduates were marked with disbelief.

Peter Cotch, who ran an unsuccessful campaign for selectmen this spring and graduated from Massachusetts School of Law last year, questioned whether Velvel is "unfit" to head an institution of higher learning.

Cotch said Velvel's remarks about the president could be enough to spark his removal as dean.

"I think the board of directors should convene an immediate meeting," said Cotch. "It cheapens my degree, quite frankly."

Cotch, a Republican, said he regards Velvel as a nonconformist and eccentric personality, but considered his recent comments to be beyond anything he's said publically in the past.

"To advocate the lynching of a sitting president? That goes beyond partisan name-calling or partisan vindictiveness," Cotch said. "These are the words of a person with an unbalanced mind, in my opinion."

Gary Gilbert, a former Army captain and veteran of the Vietnam war who works in Andover, shared a similar reaction when told of the September conference.

"These people aren't even in this world," said Gilbert. "They should thank the people who put their life on the line without thinking twice so they could pontificate."

Laura Nealy, a North Carolina resident visiting family in Andover, reacted with a long, loud laugh.

"That's my reaction," said Nealy. "That's funny. That's over the top, but probably in some people's perspective not without cause."

Ross said scholars with both international and constitutional expertise contend that the war in Iraq is illegal.

"And therefore everything taken from it will also be illegal," said Ross. "Those who produced the war are culpable."

The conference will deal with issues including the nature of the war crimes allegedly committed by U.S. officials, which officials committed the crimes, which foreign and domestic tribunals can be used to prosecute them, and the formation of a coordinating committee with representatives of numerous legal groups, Ross said.

Both experts and the public are invited to the conference that will take place at the Massachusetts School of Law campus, 500 Federal St. in Andover. It will cost $125.

The Massachusetts School of Law was established in 1988 as an alternative to traditional legal education.

Ross called the law school a "visionary" institution that in its first 20 years of existence has influenced major reform in both the legal profession and academic field.

"This conference is just another aspect of that," Ross said.