[JURIST] Human Rights Watch [official website] issued a report Saturday calling for a special prosecutor to investigate the roles of US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and former CIA director George Tenet in connection with US mistreatment and torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison [JURIST news archive] and faciltities throughout Iraq, Afghanistan, and at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive]. The report alleges that Rumsfeld failed to warn those under his command to halt abusive treatment of detainees, and that Tenet was responsible for policies that sent detainees to countries where they were tortured. The report calls for a special prosecutor and not a regular DOJ investigation because it alleges that US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has a conflict of interest due to his involvement in the abuse scanadal while White House Counsel.

Saturday's HRW report - not yet available online - comes on the heels of two other related developments; on Friday, a UN independent expert on human rights in Afghanistan issued a report [JURIST report] that he has received claims of torture and other abuses by US and Afghan forces there; also on Friday a US Army panel was reported to have cleared four senior US military officers of wrongdoing [JURIST report] in the Abu Ghraib case, although a fifth, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, was relieved of her command [JURIST report].

In February, the ACLU called on Attorney General Gonzales [JURIST report] to appoint a special counsel to investigate allegations of abuse of detainees held at Abu Ghraib prison. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld is also a named defendant in a civil suit [JURIST report] brought against him by the ACLU on behalf of eight former detainees. The New York Times has more.

8:45 AM ET Sunday - The full HRW report Getting Away with Torture? Command Responsibility for the U.S. Abuse of Detainees is now online. An accompanying press release notes that the report is being "issued on the eve of the first anniversary of the publication of the Abu Ghraib photos (April 28)."

[JURIST] Connecticut Superior Court judge Patrick J. Clifford ruled Friday that convicted serial killer Michael Ross [advocacy website; JURIST news archive] is mentally competent to waive his death penalty appeals. Ross, who was convicted of raping and killing eight woman in Connecticut and New York in the 1980s is scheduled to die by lethal injection on May 11. The decision comes after six days of conflicting testimony by psychiatrists who evaluated Ross' competency. Ross has repeatedly requested that his execution be expedited, and has fought off attempts from him family and death penalty opponents to stop his execution. Thomas Groark, special counsel appointed by Judge Clifford to argue Ross was incompetent, and the only person with standing to appeal the decision, has not announced plans to challenge the decision. Review a summary of Connecticut's death penalty laws . AP has more.

[JURIST] Ousted Ecuador president Lucio Gutierrez [Wikipedia profile] said Friday that his removal from office Wednesday by the Ecuadorian Congress [JURIST report] violated the country's constitution [text in Spanish] and that, contrary to its contention, he never abandoned his post. Gutierrez’s remarks come 3 days after the Congress voted [JURIST report] 62-0 to remove him from office under the allegation that he had abandoned his post. The vote, which allowed Congress to avoid the lengthy impeachment process, marks the third time in nine years a Ecuadorian president has been removed from office. In fact, Gutierrez, as an army officer, led the coup in 2000 that toppled the then president, Jamil Mahuad. Gutierrez has sought asylum in Brazil and released his statement from the Brazilian ambassador's residence in Ecuador. New President Alfredo Palacio indicated late Friday that Gutierrez would be allowed to leave the country, but set no timetable. AP has more.

[JURIST] US Department of Health and Human Services head Mike Leavitt announced Friday that the agency will actively enforce the little-used Born-Alive Infant Protection Act [PDF]. President Bush signed [text of remarks] the bill into law in 2002 requiring health care providers to provide adequate care to fetuses born alive during the course of an abortion. To the general definition of a human being the statute adds a born-alive infant, any fetus born with a heartbeat, or definite movement of voluntary muscles, regardless of whether extraction occurs as a result of natural or induced labor, cesarean section, or induced abortion. Under this definition, a fetus that survives an abortion procedure is no longer a fetus, but a person entitled to emergency medical care. Leavitt did not comment on complaints about lack of enforcement, but did say that the department will aggressively investigate all reports of individuals withholding medical care from an infant born alive. AP has more.

[JURIST] In an effort to implement a peace deal [highlights] between Khartoum and southern rebels that formally ended a 21-year civil war, Sudan [JURIST news archive] has formed a committee to draft an interim constitution. The constitution would clear the way for a unified Sudanese government and mark the beginning of the six-year interim period called for in the accord signed in Nairobi in January [JURIST report]. Important issues that must be addressed are wealth distribution, state and religion, ethnic diversity, and self-determination for the south. The sixty-member National Constitutional Review Committee will now begin the compromise process and members of both the Sudanese government [official website] in Khartoum and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement [official website] expect the interim constitution to be in place in July 2005. AFP has more.

[JURIST] US government officials disclosed Friday that a German citizen originally detained as a terror suspect was released in May of 2004, on direct orders from then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice [official website] after he had spent five months in an Afghan prison due to an error. The officials said that when Khaled el-Masri was removed from a bus on the Serbian-Macedonian border in late 2003 he was believed to have been a member of Al Qaeda [Wikipedia profile] trained in Afghanistan. He was flown to Afghanistan on a CIA-chartered plane as part of a then-secret program for the rendition of foreign terror suspects abroad and imprisoned at a facilty in Kabul, where he claimed US interrogators beat, humiliated and injected him in an effort to gain information. At one point he went on a hunger strike for 34 days. Only afterwards did authorities realize that his was a case of mistaken identity:; his name was similar to a name on an international watch list of suspected terrorists. He nonetheless remained imprisoned in Afghanistan until word of his case reached Rice in May 2004, when she ordered him immediately freed. He was released on May 29 2004 and government officials have acknowledged that the detention was a serious mistake. The New York Times has more [free registration required]. From Germany, Die Zeit provides local coverage in German; Frankenpost has an extensive report [in German] on his imprisonment and release.

[JURIST] Following the recommendation of a 10-member investigative team whose findings clearing four other top officers were preliminarily disclosed Friday [JURIST report], the US Army has relieved Brigadier General Jani Karpinski [Wikipedia profile] of her command for dereliction of duty in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. She was previously suspended [JURIST report]. The recommendation came after the panel found that allegations of dereliction were substantiated during its six-month investigation. Karpinkski, who will avoid criminal punishment, has received an official letter of reprimand from a senior Army general along with being relieved of her command. Reuters has more. Earlier this month Karpinski said in an address in San Francisco that the Abu Ghraib abuse was authorized by top US officials; listen to her April 8 speech [recorded audio].