WWW- ALBERTO Gonzales, the White House legal adviser once embroiled in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, was named by President George Bush yesterday as US Attorney-General.

Once his nomination is confirmed by the US Senate, Mr Gonzales, 49, will replace the retired John Ashcroft and become the first Hispanic-American to fill the post.

Mr Gonzales, a close friend and confidant of the President since Mr Bush was Governor of Texas, pledged to serve with trust and integrity.

Mr Bush sought to head off critics of Mr Gonzales’ past approach to civil liberties, saying he had served with skill and integrity as legal counsel.

“His sharp intellect and sound judgment have helped shape our policies in the war on terror – policies designed to protect the security of all Americans,” he said. “He has led a superb team of lawyers and upheld the highest standards of government ethics.

“I urge the Senate to act promptly on this important nomination.”

When the Abu Ghraib scandal erupted this year, Mr Gonzales was blamed for helping create the culture which led to the abuses, not just in Iraq but in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

In January 2002, with the war against terror under way, he sent a memo to Mr Bush suggesting the Geneva Convention be ignored when interrogating prisoners.

“The nature of the new war places a higher premium on our ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists,” Mr Gonzales advised.

“In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete the Geneva Convention’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions.”

Mr Gonzales vigorously denied he or the Administration had ever sanctioned torture.

He was a strident defender of the Government’s policy of keeping detainees at such places as Guantanamo Bay for long periods without access to lawyers or courts.

Mr Gonzales’ ascension to Attorney-General is an American dream come true and a political boon for Mr Bush, because Hispanics are a growing and increasingly important sector of the electorate.

The second of eight children, Mr Gonzales was born in Texas to immigrant parents.

He served in the US Air Force in the 1970s and graduated from Harvard with a law degree in 1982.