Memo justifies Al Awlaki killing

Washington: The Obama administration's secret legal memorandum that opened the door to the killing of Anwar Al Awlaki, the US-born radical Muslim cleric hiding in Yemen, found that it would be lawful only if it were not feasible to take him alive, according to people who have read the document.

The memo, written last year, came after months of extensive inter-agency deliberations and offers a glimpse into the legal debate that led to one of the most significant decisions made by President Barack Obama — to move ahead with the killing of a US citizen without trial.

The secret document was narrowly drawn to the specifics of Al Awlaki's case and did not establish a broad new doctrine to permit the killing of Americans in other circumstances.

The memo provided the justification for acting despite an executive order banning assassinations, a federal law against murder, protections of the Bill of Rights and various strictures of the international laws of war, according to people familiar with the analysis.

Factual premises

The legal analysis relied upon several factual premises offered by intelligence agencies to government lawyers, including that Al Awlaki was playing a direct role in terrorist operations against the US, that he was affiliated with Al Qaida's terrorist network and that he was beyond the reach of Yemen's authorities.

The memorandum, which was written more than a year before Al Awlaki was killed in a drone strike last month, does not closely analyse the quality of the evidence for those assertions.

The Obama administration has refused to acknowledge or discuss its role in the strike, which technically remains a covert operation.

It has also refused to release its legal reasoning. But the document that laid out its justification — a roughly 50-page memorandum by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, completed around June 2010 — was described on the condition of anonymity by people who have read it.