[JURIST] Brazil, the country with the world's highest death rate from firearms [Independent report], Sunday firmly rejected a ban on gun and ammunition sales in its first national referendum. Initial pre-referendum surveys had indicated a favorable view of the ban, but an anti-ban advertising blitz in the run-up to the vote appears to have turned the tide. With 75% of votes reported, 64% of voters favored keeping arms sales legal ["No" website, in Portugese], while only 35% were opposed ["Yes" website, in Portuguese]. Some citizens believed a gun ban would increase corruption, while others argued that firearms did not give any protection to ordinary citizens. Most of the violence in Brazil stems from drug traffickers, who virtually control the streets. Some 36,000 gun deaths were reported in Brazil in 2004 as compared to 30,000 in the US, a country with a third more population. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva [Wikipedia profile] voted in favor of the firearms ban. Gun control laws passed in 2003 decreased gun sales to civilians by 80 percent [Reuters article] but did not significantly reduce the number of deaths from firearms. Agencia Brasil has a breakdown of the latest referendum results by region [in Portuguese]. Many political observers welcomed the vote, regardless of the result, as a recognition of democratic popular sovereignty. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] The New York Times reported Sunday that federal prosecutors reviewing the involvement of CIA [official website; JURIST news archive] officials in the deaths of at least four prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan have decided not to bring criminal charges against all but one CIA employee. The US Justice Department [official website; JURIST news archive] believes the US military bears most of the blame for prisoner deaths. Contract worker David Passaro [Raleigh News-Observer report] appears to be the only person linked to the CIA who was involved in deaths of prisoners, although Passaro insists he has been scapegoated for political reasons. Another case technically still under review by the Justice Department involves an Iraqi who died during CIA interrogation in a shower room at Abu Ghraib [JURIST news archive]. The Justice Department will not pursue two additional cases involving the hypothermia of an Afghan at a detention center in November, 2002 and the death of a former Iraqi general [JURIST report] who succumbed to asphyxiation after his head was stuffed into a sleeping bag at an American base in western Iraq. AFP has more.

[JURIST] Officials and community advocates in New Orleans have proposed using the Roman law concept of usufruct [backgrounder] to allow authorities to gain temporary control of privately owned homes damaged by Hurricane Katrina [JURIST news archive]. Coming into Louisiana state law via the French and Spanish civil code traditions, usufruct gives a party the temporary legal right to use and profit from property that belongs to another so long as they do not change the nature of that property. The decimated homes, in neighborhoods that stretch beyond the popular French Quarter and Garden District, have no power, water or other means of recovery. Mtumishi St. Julien, a longtime community advocate, housing advisor to Mayor Michael C. Ray Nagin and executive director of the Finance Agency of New Orleans, supports the proposal because many property owners do not have the means to fix their own property. If the proposal is incorporated into legislation, authorities will form agreements with property owners not planning to return to New Orleans in the near future to sign over controlling rights of the property to the government in exchange for the government taking over mortgage payments and arranging to rebuild the homes. After an agreed-upon time, the original property owners might return if they can repay the government for the repairs made, or allow the government to sell the properties and share in the profits or losses. The Los Angeles Times has more.

[JURIST] Lebanese authorities said Saturday that they have apprehended a man who called President Emile Lahoud shortly before the February 4 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri [JURIST news archive]. Lebanon Public Prosecutor Saeed Meerza issued a warrant for the arrest of Mahmoud Abdel-Al based on the UN report [text] on Hariri's assassination. The report also names Abdel-Al's brother, a member of pro-Syrian Al-Ahbash group [Wikipedia backgrounder]. A spokesman for Lahoud has denied that the president had been in contact with Abdel-Al. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] The UN's special rapporteur for human rights in Sudan [JURIST news archive] said Saturday that the Sudanese government has failed to try persons responsible for war crimes in Darfur [BBC backgrounder, JURIST news archive]. Dr. Sima Samar [BBC profile 2003] said that organized sexual violence against women is continuing and the government is doing nothing to prevent it. He also reported that emergency laws in effect in Darfur and in the capital Khartoum were allowing security forces to arbitrarily detain, torture and kill civilians. Sudan says that all rights violations are investigated, but a domestic tribunal [JURIST report] set up for investigating and prosecuting war crimes committed in the Darfur region has so far tried just three cases out of 72,000 complaints filed. The national court is supposed to be a local substitute for International Criminal Court [official website], the jurisdiction of which Sudanese authorities have rejected. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Lawyers for Saddam Hussein [JURIST news archive] and his co-defendants announced Saturday that they would boycott their trial unless the court was moved outside of Iraq for their own safety. The statement comes after Saadoun Sughaiyer al-Janabi, a defense lawyer accused Saddam chief judge Awad Hamed al-Bandar, was kidnapped and murdered [JURIST report] late last week. The defense team has called for increased security and a full investigation into al-Janabi's murder, and has said that they hold the Iraqi government responsible for the killing. Ahmad Chalabi, Iraq's deputy prime minister, reiterated the government's earlier statement that the trial should only take place in Iraq. The Times of London has more.

2:15 PM ET - The Iraqi Bar Association Sunday urged Iraqi lawyers not to work with the court trying Saddam Hussein and his seven co-defendants until authorities solve the al-Janabi killing. Association members also passed a resolution calling for a one-day strike Wednesday to protest the killing. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Iraqi election officials Saturday announced partial results of the country's October 15 constitutional referendum [JURIST report] that pointed towards approval of the draft charter [JURIST news archive] in the final count. Figures based on half the returns in 13 of Iraq's 18 provinces suggested that the document had been approved there by majorities of between 51 and 98 percent; in Sunni-dominated Salahuddin province [Wikipedia backgrounder], the home of Saddam Hussein's family, 81.15% of ballots rejected the constitution, which is also believed to have failed in violence-wracked Anbar province, for which no figures were cited. Under the referendum rules, the draft comstitution will fail if it is rejected by two-thirds of voters in at least three provinces. In Diyala [Wikipedia backgrounder], a "swing" province with a mixed population, the charter now appears to have been very narrowly approved (51%) after initial reports of an approval rating of some 70%, but even there the revised proportion of "no" votes seems far less than the two-thirds required to reject. Voting appeared generally to be very much along ethnic lines across the country, with eight Shiite provinces registering 95%+ approval votes, and the two Kurdish provinces of Sulaimaniyah and Dohuk voting "yes" by more than 98 percent. The Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq [official website] has issued a press release [PDF]. Scotland on Sunday has more; the Chicago Tribune provides additional coverage.