America’s Top Legal Advisor to Iraq
Delivers Keynote Address at Law School’s Commencement
Exercises
Queens, NY – The “rule of law” is Iraq’s best hope for lasting
freedom from the terrors inflicted by former dictator Saddam
Hussein, America’s top legal advisor to Baghdad’s new war crime
tribunal declared at Commencement for St. John’s School of Law on
June 5.
Gregory W. Kehoe ‘79L, U.S. Chief Advisor to the Iraqi Crimes
Tribunal, delivered the Commencement Address to the approximately
300 graduating law students during exercises at Lou Carnesecca
Arena on the Queens campus. Kehoe told the graduates that a strong
legal system is every democracy’s foundation – a defense against
arbitrary prosecution.
A partner at the law firm of James, Hoyer, Newcomer &
Smiljanich P.A., Kehoe was chosen to lead the international team of
specialists advising Iraqi judges and prosecutors on building their
case against the former Iraqi dictator. Kehoe’s team also leads
efforts to collect evidence against Hussein.
Kehoe has a distinguished record as a prosecutor of
international war crimes. From 1995 to 1999, as a member of the
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Kehoe
successfully prosecuted a Croatian general for the massacre of
Muslin noncombatants.
Rev. Donald J. Harrington, C.M., President of St. John’s,
conferred the honorary Doctor of Laws degree upon Kehoe and the
Honorable Patricia P. Satterfield ‘77L, a New York State Supreme
Court Justice in Queens, NY.