US new Attorney General’s ancestors come from Belarusian

US Congress Senate appointed former federal judge Michael Mukasey to the post of the Minister of Justice and Attorney General. Previously the post was occupied by Alberto R. Gonzales who resigned in August.

George Bush proposed 66-year old Michael Mukasey to the post in mid September. At the same time he emphasized that Mukasey, who had been a judge in the Southern District of New York and had been passing sentences on terrorists’ cases for 18 years, “knows effective ways of combating terrorism in full accordance with our laws.” Then the Democrats of the Congress remarked they expected Mukasey to serve the people, not the US president.

Michael Mukasey’s family comes from Belarus. He was born on 28 July 1941 in New York, studied in the Jewish school Ramaz in Manhattan. As Charter’97 press center previously reported, Mukasey’s father was born and lived in a small town near Baranavichy.

Having graduated from Columbian University and Law School of Yells University in 1967, Mukasey worked as a lawyer in law firms of New York. At that time he got acquainted with young lawyer Rudolph Giuliani who made Mukasey his assistant after having become New York public prosecutor. Mukasey held the post 4 years.

He was appointed a federal judge in 1987 by President Reagan. In particular, he chaired at the trial on the case of Islamite terrorists arrested for the bomb explosion in an underground garage of the New York World Trade Center in 1993 and sentenced the initiator of the terrorist attack - Egyptian mullah Omar Abdel-Rahman - to life imprisonment.

When Giuliani went into the presidential election campaign, Mukasey and his son joined the candidate’s election head quarters as legal advisers.