[JURIST] US Attorney General Michael Mukasey [official profile; JURIST news archive] defended Bush administration attorneys who authored memoranda supporting the legality of coercive interrogating tactics - the so-called "torture memos" [JURIST news archive] - in a commencement address [text] to Boston College Law School graduates Friday. Emphasizing the legal complexity of the issues raised in the memos and criticizing the vilification of the authors [JURIST op-ed] in some quarters, Mukasey told the audience:

Today, many of the senior government lawyers who provided legal advice supporting the nation’s most important counterterrorism policies have been subjected to relentless public criticism. In some corners, one even hears suggestions—suggestions that are made in a manner that is almost breathtakingly casual—that some of these lawyers should be subject to civil or criminal liability for the advice they gave. The rhetoric of these discussions is hostile and unforgiving.

The difficulty and novelty of the legal questions these lawyers confronted is scarcely mentioned; indeed, the vast majority of the criticism is unaccompanied by any serious legal analysis. In addition, it is rarely acknowledged that those public servants were often working in an atmosphere of almost unimaginable pressure, without the academic luxury of endless time for debate. Equally ignored is the fact that, by all accounts I have seen or heard, including but not limited to Jack Goldsmith’s book [The Terror Presidency], those lawyers reached their conclusions in good faith based upon their best judgments of what the law required.

[JURIST] US Department of Defense [official website] prosecutors Friday charged [charge sheet, PDF] Guantanamo Bay detainee Noor Uthman Muhammed with conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism. Muhammed, a Sudanese national, is accused of conspiring with various al Qaeda [JURIST news archive] leaders and running a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan between 1996 and 2000.

Captured in Pakistan in 2002, Muhammed is the sixteenth detainee to be charged at Guantanamo under the Military Commissions Act of 2006 [DOD materials], passed by Congress after the US Supreme Court ruled [opinion, PDF; JURIST report] that the previous system, created by President George W. Bush, violated US and international law. AP has more. Reuters has additional coverage.

[JURIST] Some 270 illegal immigrants [JURIST news archive] arrested during a US immigration sting at an Agriprocessors Inc. [corporate website] meatpacking plant in Iowa, were each sentenced to five months in prison [ICE press release] and 27 more received probation after pleading guilty to the use of false immigration documents, the New York Times reported Saturday. In what federal officials called the largest operation of its kind, the 297 workers made their pleas over the course of just four days in temporary courtrooms at a local fairgrounds. The Times noted it is uncommon for illegal immigrants to face criminal prosecution as opposed to civil charges and deportation. The American Immigration Lawyers Association [advocacy website] criticized the government for severity of the charges and alleged breaches of due process for the accused [letter, PDF], but court-appointed defense lawyers for the workers said their clients were motivated to accept the deals rather than face more severe charges that would have carried minimum two-year sentences.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) [official website], the agency that carried out the raid on the plant, has also arrested more than 900 illegal immigrants in California [ICE press release] over the past three weeks, the agency said on Friday. That sting was targeted at 495 people who had ignored deportation orders, but several hundred other illegal immigrants were also found during operation. AP has more.