[JURIST] A prominent Islamic scholar was convicted Tuesday by a Virginia jury on 10 counts [indictment PDF; JURIST report] of encouraging his followers to fight a holy war against the US and join the Taliban in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks. Ali al-Timimi [pro-al-Timimi profile; Support Committee website], 41, a lecturer at the Center for Islamic Information and Education [official website] in Falls Church, Virginia, could face life imprisonment. US District Judge Leonie Brinkema, who has also presided over the Zacarias Moussaoui case. set al-Timimi's bail at $75,000 and allowed him to go free subject to electronic monitoring pending sentencing in July. AP has more.

[JURIST] A senior US State Department envoy said Tuesday after meetings with German officials that the German federal experience could provide a useful model for a permanent Iraqi constitution. Citing the German structure of multiple laender [maps and profiles] with considerable autonomy united in a federal union, Richard Jones [archived State Department profile], former US ambassador to Lebanon and now US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's top advisor on Iraq, suggested that the German arrangement could provide the basis for a stable Iraqi nation state with different regions under a single federal government. The new Iraqi National Assembly under the leadership of a government the formation of which is still incomplete [JURIST report] is charged under the interim Iraqi constitution with drafting a permanent charter for Iraq by August 15, less than 4 months from now. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Italian prosecutors in Milan Tuesday asked a judge to order Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and 12 others to stand trial on corruption charges relating to alleged fraud, tax evasion and money laundering in connection with a TV rights deal involving Mediaset [corporate website in Italian]. Mediaset, controlled by a holding company controlled by Berlusconi's family, has denied any accusations of wrongdoing, Italy's ANE news agency has more in Italian. Late last year Berlusconi was cleared by a Rome court [JURIST report] of corruption charges connected with alleged bribery of judges in the 1990s, before he became Italian prime minister.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court ruled 5-3 Tuesday in Small v. US [case backgrounder from Duke Law] that people convicted of a crime in a foreign country may own a gun in the US. Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the majority, said that applying 18 U.S.C. 922, which makes it a crime for ex-convicts to possess a gun, to foreign convictions would be unfair to defendants because international courts often have fewer procedural protections. Justice Clarence Thomas, dissenting, wrote that the phrase "any court" in the statute should be given a literal meaning, and apply to all courts both foreign and domestic. The Bush administration had asked the court to apply the statute to foreign convictions. Chief Justice William Rehnquist did not take part in the decision, which was heard while he was recovering from treatment for thyroid cancer. Read the Court's full opinion and the dissent by Justice Thomas [Cornell LII].

The Court also ruled 5-4 Tuesday that Americans can be prosecuted under US wire fraud law for scheming to evade foreign taxes, in a case about liquor smuggled from the United States into Canada. Justice Thomas, writing for the majority in Pasquantino v. US [case backgrounder from Duke Law] said that although it "may seem an odd use of the federal government's resources to prosecute a U.S. citizen for smuggling cheap liquor into Canada," the Wire Fraud Act applied, based on phone calls between the US and Canada which occurred. "No canon of statutory construction permits us to read the statute more narrowly," concluded Justice Thomas. Read the Court's full opinion, and the dissent by Justice Ginsburg [Cornell LII].

[JURIST] Syria completed a withdrawal of its military forces from Lebanon Tuesday, ending a 29-year presence just weeks before thr country's's parliamentary elections. The February 14 assassination of former premier Rafik Hariri, suspected to be the work of Syrian backers of the Lebanese government, brought about massive civil unrest in Lebanon, and growing dissatisfaction with Syrian occupation. Additionally, pressure was placed upon Syria by the US and UN to withdraw its military forces. UN Resolution 1559 [official text, PDF], passed in late 2004, called for Syria to withdraw all of its forces. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan dispatched a team to verify the withdrawal. Syrians entered Lebanon in 1976, as peacekeepers in Lebanon's civil war. After the war ended in 1990, 40,000 Syrian troops remained, causing Lebanese politics to be heavily influenced by Syria. AP has more. The Daily Star has local coverage from Lebanon.

[JURIST] On a visit to France Tuesday, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder [official site, in German] voiced support for a call by French President Jacques Chirac [official site, in English] for French citizens to ratify the new EU Constitution [official site]. Current polls indicate that French voters will reject the constitution when a national referendum occurs on May 29. Speaking at a news conference in Paris, Schroeder warned that voting down the constitution would "weaken, not strengthen, the power of the Europeans." The constitution requires ratification by all 25 EU members before it can be implemented. The latest polls conducted by Ipsos [official site] say that 52% of voters are opposed to ratification. French citizens cite rampant unemployment as grounds for opposition, as EU enlargement allows foreigners to poach French jobs. Voters in Germany will not have the chance to vote on the EU treaty, which will instead be decided by parliament with votes in May. Spain was the first country to approve the EU constitution by referendum [JURIST report], with 77 percent voting in favor in February. Greece, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, and Slovenia have also backed the constitution. Bloomberg News has more. The EU provides a concise table of EU contries and their ratification status.

[JURIST] A resolution [official text] amending the Texas Constitution [official text] to define marriage as between "one man and one woman" passed the Texas House on Monday by a vote of 102-29. If the resolution receives final passage on the Senate floor, it will be added to the Nov. 8 ballot to be voted on by Texas voters. Currently, domestic partnerships are legal in a few Texas counties, and offering some of the same legal rights as marriage. Under the proposed amendment, Texas would not recognize "any arrangement similar to marriages, not even civil unions between two people of the opposite sex," said Rep. Warren Chisum [official site], co-author of the resolution. The Daily Texan has more.

In a related story, the 300,000-member Navajo Nation, the largest Native American reservation, has backed a bill to ban gay marriage. The Dine Marriage Act [official press release] prohibits marriage between close relatives, as well as between persons of the same sex. The tribal council approved the measure 63-0 last week, despite President Joe Shirley's opposition. Historians say Native Americans once tolerated gays in their community but the influence of Europeans in the New World changed their social attitudes. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] A Japanese court Tuesday refused to grant a petition by a group of Japanese and South Korean citizens seeking to stop Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi [official website, English version] and Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara from visiting a Shinto shrine honoring Japan's war dead, including convicted World War II war criminals. The petitioners had argued in Tokyo District Court that their visits would violate provisions in the Japanese constitition on the separation of religion and state. Koizumi and Ishihara have both visited the Yasukuni Shrine [official website in Japanese] in previous years; last year a court in southern Japan ruled that Koizumi's past visits did indeed violate the constitution [JURIST report], but that ruling did not affect future visits. AP has more. Koizumi has not yet said whether or when he will visit the shrine again, insisting that "I will make the appropriate decision." Japan Today has local coverage.

[JURIST] The Iraq Survey Group investigating the existence of possible Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) reported publicly Monday that it could find no evidence that any such weapons were transferred to Syria in an effort to hide them from inspectors, although it did not rule out the possibility of some unofficial transfers. Review the report text [PDF], posted on the CIA website. In a previous report [text] last year the ISG had said it had discovered no evidence of WMDs in Iraq itself despite the efforts of a 1700-person US team to find them. The US invaded Iraq in early 2003, citing, among other things, the threat posed by WMDs that it alleged were in the hands of then-Iraqi president Saddam Hussein despite reports from United Nations weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix that there was no evidence of such weapons. AP has more.

[JURIST] The number of death sentences handed down in 2004 was the lowest since 1976, according to new statistics released by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund [advocacy website]. A total of 125 people were sentenced to death by US courts in 2004, down from 144 in 2003, and 300 in 1998. Texas mandated the death penalty in the most cases in 2004 - 23 - with California (11), Florida and Alabama in train (8 each). Observers variously attribute the decline in nationwide death sentences to increasing recognition of the fallacy of the conviction process in light of DNA evidence, an overall decline in the national murder rate, and the Supreme Court's reclassification of which killers are in fact eligible for death. AP has more. There are currently 3455 people on death row in the United States [NAACP statistics, PDF] of whom 41.9% of which are black.

[JURIST] Mexico City mayor Lopez Obrador [advocacy website in Spanish] returned to work Monday despite government contentions that that was illegal and that he had in fact lost his job after the country's Congress lifted his immunity from prosecution earlier this month on a contempt charge. Hundreds of thousands of Mexicans turned out over the weekend to demonstrate [La marcha del silencio advisory] in his favor; the charges that were formally filed against him last week [JURIST report] are temporarily in legal limbo after a judge sent them back to prosecutors on a technicality. Obrador wants to run against current Mexican president Vicente Fox in upcoming national elections, but would probably be blocked from doing so if convicted. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] A Chilean court Monday freed a portion of former Chilean President Augusto Pinochet's previously-frozen assets [JURIST report] to allow the ex-dictator to pay five years of back taxes. Judge Sergio Munoz froze the assets last year after finding that Pinochet [JURIST news archive] and his family put about $17 million in some 100 foreign bank accounts which were never reported to Chilean authorities. Chile's revenue department has indicated that it will persist in its tax fraud case against him [JURIST report] even if the back taxes are paid. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Togo's electoral commission Tuesday released provisional figures [Togo government report] indicating that ruling party candidate Faure Gnassingbe won Sunday's disputed presidential election, taking 60.22% of the vote as against 38.19% for opposition coalition leader Emmanuel Bob-Akitani. Allegations of fraud surrounded the poll, which was marred by violence in the capital, Lome, although not to the extent earlier predicted by Togo's Interior Minister last week, who was forced to resign after he said the Sunday vote would prove "suicidal" [JURIST report]. Reuters has more. Togo's constitutional court now has seven days to confirm the voting results. Government and opposition leaders agreed Monday that they would form a government of national unity with both sides particpating in order to avert further violence, regardless of the final result. Togo's political system has been in chaos since the death in February of Gnassingbe's father, Gnassingbe Eyadema, who ruled Togo for almost four decades.

9:18 AM ET - Late reports from Lome say that following the announcement of the election results favoring Faure Gnassingbe, angry pro-opposition youths have poured onto the streets of the capital, setting up barricades and lighting fires that have sent black smoke billowing over sections of the city. Riot police have been sent in to control protestors. Aid workers say that unrest has also spread to centers in the interior of the country. Reuters has more.