[JURIST] White House spokesperson Scott McClellan Wednesday dismissed findings from the latest Human Rights Watch annual report [PDF text; JURIST report] alleging that the US has made deliberate and blatant use of torture and the inhumane treatment of prisoners in its "war on terror". HRW Executive Director Kenneth Roth wrote in the report's introduction:

Any discussion of detainee abuse in 2005 must begin with the United States, not because it is the worst violator but because it is the most influential. New evidence demonstrated that the problem was much greater than it first appeared after the shocking revelations of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Indeed, the sexual degradation glimpsed in the Abu Ghraib photos was so outlandish that it made it easier for the Bush administration to deny having had anything to do with it—to pretend that the abuse erupted spontaneously at the lowest levels of the military chain of command and could be corrected with the prosecution of a handful of privates and sergeants...

Still, it is one thing to create an environment in which abuse of detainees flourishes, quite another to order that abuse directly. In 2005 it became disturbingly clear that the abuse of detainees had become a deliberate, central part of the Bush administration’s strategy for interrogating terrorist suspects.

[JURIST] UK fathers' rights group Fathers 4 Justice [advocacy website; BBC backgrounder] announced Wednesday that it would disband after the Sun newspaper published a report that some of its members planned to abduct the 5-year-old son of British Prime Minister Tony Blair [official profile; JURIST news archive]. The group, notorious for past stunts such as a 2004 powder attack on Blair [JURIST report] in the House of Commons, has recently been undermined by extremist members like those who planned the kidnapping and some of whom had already been ousted from the group, according to founder Matt O'Connor. O'Connor also confirmed that anti-terror officials questioned several former members of the group during December. Read O'Connor's press statement on the F4J homepage. AP has more.

[JURIST] Interim Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert [official profile] on Wednesday asked his defense minister to create a plan for removing 24 Jewish settler outposts, deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice [official website], from the Palestinian West Bank. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon [BBC profile; official website] and the Israeli Cabinet originally decided to dismantle the outposts last March [JURIST report] as part of the "Road Map" to peace with Palestine, but Sharon delayed the removal of the outposts to avoid backlash from Israelis already upset with the Gaza evacuation. Settlers, who contributed to the delay with legal action over the past year, plan to appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court [official website] to retain the outposts, which a government study last year also branded illegal [JURIST report]. Olmert wants to immediately begin removing outposts from the West Bank city of Hebron, where security forces arrested settlers and supporters on Tuesday. AP has more.

[JURIST] The US military confirmed Wednesday that it currently holds at least 8 female prisoners as security threats at the Abu Ghraib [JURIST news archive] prison in Baghdad after captors of an American journalist demanded the US free all Iraqi women detainees within 72 hours. Armed Iraqis kidnapped the journalist, Jill Carroll [CNN profile] of the Christian Science Monitor [website; Carroll updates], on January 7 from a Baghdad street and have threatened to kill her if their demand is not met. The Iraqi Justice Ministry has confirmed that civilian jails also contain woman prisoners convicted of common crimes. The US military released 509 prisoners [JURIST report] from Abu Ghraib on Sunday, including 2 international journalists. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Egyptian officials have said that 143 Sudanese refugees, detained by Cairo police after a three-month sit-in protest was forcibly broke up, will be released. As many 600 other Sudanese refugees, some of whom hail from the war torn region of Darfur [JURIST news archive], face deportation by Egyptian Foreign Ministry [official website, in Arabic] for their alleged role in the demonstration, an incident that resulted in the death of at least 28 people. The release of the detained refugees by Egypt follows pressure from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) [official website], which urged Cairo [JURIST report] to release and not deport the prisoners. The UNHCR has also received assurances [UNHCR news release] from Cairo that the government will refrain from deporting any Sudanese accused of involvement in the demonstration until each case can be fully investigated on an individual basis. AFP has more.

[JURIST] The new chief judge in the Saddam Hussein trial [JURIST news archive] is a member of the banned Baath party [BBC profile] and should be replaced, Ali Faisal, executive manager of Iraq's Debaathification Commission [official website], said Wednesday. According to Faisal, the newly appointed Sayeed al-Hamashi, "is the object of a debaathification inquiry." Hamashi, picked by tribunal officials [JURIST report] to preside over the trial after the previous chief judge resigned [JURIST report] last week, has yet to comment publicly on Faisal's remarks. Chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi, however, told Reuters that, "Hamashi denies having any relationship with the Baath party." The Debaathification Commission was originally set up with the approval of the US-run Coalition Provisional Authority [official website] after Saddam's overthrow in 2003 and is charged with rooting out members of the Baath party from positions of power in the Iraqi government. Meanwhile, in remarks [transcript] Wednesday after meeting victims of Saddam Hussein's regime at the White House, President Bush reiterated his faith in the Hussein trial [Reuters report], asserting that Hussein was a "butcherer" and that he would "get his due justice under rule of law." Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Five hundred Bosnian police officers launched an ultimately unsuccessful operation on Wednesday near the town of Han Pijesak in an failed attempt to find and arrest either Radovan Karadzic [BBC profile] or Ratko Mladic [BBC profile], both of whom are accused of genocide [ICTY case backgrounder]. At a news conference, a spokesman for the police acknowledged that the target of the raid was either Karadzic or Mladic, but refused to specify which suspect they believed to be in the area, saying only that the "suspect we were looking for was not found." Both Karadzic, a former political leader in Bosnia, and his army chief Mladic face charges for war crimes [JURIST news archive] levied by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia [official website] for their alleged role in the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the eastern enclave of Srebrenica during the siege of Sarajevo. Earlier this month, a NATO official called on Serbia and Bosnia [JURIST report] to step up their efforts to find the wanted war criminals and a European Union official confiscated funds [JURIST report] from the still active Serb Democratic Party (SDS) because Karadzic, its founder, remains at large. AP has more.

[JURIST] Fiji Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase [official profile] has said legislation offering amnesty to those involved in a May 2000 racially-motivated coup [BBC report] will be delayed. The Reconciliation, Tolerance, and Immunity Bill [PDF text] has prompted widespread controversy since it was introduced last year, with the country's military commander, Commodore Voreque Bainimarama [official profile], threatening to overthrow the government [JURIST report] over the measure. Bainimarama has said that the proposal will increase the likelihood of future coups and will worsen the political position of Fiji's ethnic Indians. Qarase met with Bainimarama Monday, when the two agreed on measures to improve their relations. Qarase first proposed making changes to the bill [JURIST report] last October. The legislation was scheduled to return to Parliament for a vote in February, but the prime minister now says that he cannot provide a timetable for the bill at this time, and cannot guarantee that it will be passed before the September elections. AFP has more.

[JURIST] The military court-martial of Army Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr. continued Tuesday with arguments from Welshofer's lawyer that interrogation methods used by the army officer were approved by his commander and were not the cause of the death of an Iraqi general in 2003. Welshofer is facing murder charges stemming from the 2003 incident [JURIST report] where Iraqi Major General Abed Hamed Mowhoush was placed in a sleeping bag, bound, and sat on as a means of interrogation by US forces [Washington Post report; Article 32 military hearing transcript, PDF]. According to an autopsy report, Mowhoush died of suffocation as a result, but Welshofer argued instead that Mowhoush died as a result of an irregular heart beat caused by heart disease and stress from the interrogation. Three soldiers were originally charged [JURIST report] with the murder, but charges were dropped against one soldier last week as part of a plea bargain [JURIST report]. Under the deal, Chief Warrant Officer Jefferson Williams agreed to testify against Welshofer in exchange for not being expelled from the military. The court-martial is expected to last all week. AP has more.

[JURIST] Respect for human rights in Asia has been on a serious decline over the past year, according to a report released Wednesday by Human Rights Watch [advocacy website]. HRW says that the governments of some Asian countries, including Nepal, Cambodia, Thailand, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and China, were behind the worst rights violations, and that government leaders use "Asian values" as an excuse for human rights violations. Government leaders in the countries implicated in the Human Rights Watch World Report 2006 [text; press release] say that universal human rights documents and treaties [OHCHR materials] do not take into account values that differ from those in Western countries and that international rights documents should reflect these differences. The HRW report also criticizes the US war on terrorism, saying that the Bush administration undermined human rights [Reuters report] by purposely using torture and inhumane treatment as part of their counterterrorism strategy, and calls for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate abuses. AFP has more.

[JURIST] A federal district judge on Tuesday approved the settlement of a lawsuit and authorized the city of New Orleans to continue demolition of homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina [JURIST news archive], so long as homeowners are given advance notice. The settlement comes in a lawsuit challenging the city's demolition plan [JURIST report]. Plaintiffs in the suit, including the National Urban League [advocacy website], argued that the destruction should be halted because homeowners did not receive adequate notice and because the plan would push out poor black residents. The New York Times has more.

[JURIST] Russia is considering a request by former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] that he travel to that country for medical treatment, the Russian foreign ministry announced Wednesday. In December, Milosevic asked [JURIST report] the judges of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website] to allow him to visit Russia for a checkup and medical treatment. The prosecution in Milosevic's trial has voiced its opposition to Milosevic's leaving the Netherlands, arguing that he may not return to The Hague to finish out his trial, and has said that it will not support transfer to Russia even if Russian authorities guarantee Milosevic's return to the ICTY. Milosevic suffers from a heart condition and high blood pressure, which caused another delay in his trial in November [JURIST report]. Proceedings are scheduled to resume January 23. Reuters has more. From Russia, Interfax has local coverage.

4:19 PM ET - Russia's Foreign Ministry has now said that it has accepted Milosevic's request to travel to Moscow for medical treatment and that it will guarantee Milsoevic's return to the ICTY. Aljazeera has more.

[JURIST] France, Britain and Germany circulated a draft resolution on Iran among key members of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) [official website] on Wednesday calling for a referral to the UN Security Council. The resolution, if accepted by the nuclear watchdog, would open the possibility of sanctions against Iran [JURIST news archive] and calls on Iran to "clarify questions" over its restarted nuclear program [IAEA backgrounder]. The draft resolution comes a week after the three European countries decided to join the United States [JURIST report] in calling for the Iranian government to explain to the IAEA why it recently decided to restart its uranium enrichment program [JURIST report], which could enable Iran to develop nuclear weapons. Iran has threatened [JURIST report] to block nuclear inspections if it referred to the Security Council. The draft resolution will be considered by the IAEA board of governors at an emergency meeting [Reuters report] on Iran scheduled for February 2. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] In response to mounting criticism of the Bush administration's warrantless domestic surveillance program [JURIST news archive], White House spokesman Scott McClellan on Tuesday took time during his daily press briefing [official transcript] to react to the two lawsuits filed by civil rights organizations [JURIST report] Tuesday against the administration. Arguing that the lawsuits, which challenge the constitutionality of the surveillance program, were "frivolous," McClellan stated that the two suits did nothing to further protect the civil rights of American citizens. During his remarks, McClellan also targeted former vice president Al Gore in response to Gore's earlier harsh criticism of the administration's surveillance practices [JURIST report], arguing that the former vice president's "hypocrisy knows no bounds." McClellan noted that the Clinton administration used warrantless physical searches and that a deputy attorney general under the Clinton administration testified before Congress that the DOJ believes that the President has inherent authority "to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes". Gore reacted to the administration's criticisms and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' defense of the NSA program by saying that the response illustrates the need for a special counsel to review the program. In a statement [text], Gore said:

the Attorney General's attempt to cite a previous administration's activity as precedent for theirs -- even though factually wrong -- ironically demonstrates another reason why we must be so vigilant about their brazen disregard for the law. If unchecked, their behavior would serve as a precedent to encourage future presidents to claim these same powers, which many legal experts in both parties believe are clearly illegal.

The issue, simply put, is that for more than four years, the executive branch has been wiretapping many thousands of American citizens without warrants in direct contradiction of American law. It is clearly wrong and disrespectful to the American people to allow a close political associate of the president to be in charge of reviewing serious charges against him.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website] handed down decisions in three cases Wednesday, including a decision in Will v. Hallock [Duke Law case backgrounder], where the Court ruled that a refusal to apply the judgment bar in the Federal Tort Claims Act [text] is not open to collateral appeal. The court considered [JURIST report] the case of Susan Hallock who first sued the federal government under the FTCA for alleged constitutional violations when her husband was mistakenly targeted in a child pornography investigation. That claim was dismissed and individual governmental employees, who had been sued by Hallock in a separate action, attempted to use the FTCA's judgment bar [text] in moving for judgment in the second lawsuit. The Second Circuit upheld [ruling, PDF] the District Court's denial of the motion, but the Supreme Court vacated and remanded the appeals court decision. Read the Court's unanimous opinion [text] per Justice Souter.

In Rice v. Collins [Duke Law case backgrounder], the Court held that the Ninth Circuit's attempt to use a set of debatable inferences to set aside a California court's conclusion does not satisfy the requirements of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) [PDF text] for granting habeas relief. During jury selection for Collins' trial on drug charges, Collins alleged that the prosecutor improperly relied on race as a factor when using peremptory challenges. Though the trial court and state appellate court upheld Collins' convictions and accepted the prosecutor's race-neutral reasons for dismissing the jurors, the Ninth Circuit reversed [opinion, PDF] the state court, ruling that under AEDPA, the appeals court decision was based on an unreasonable factual determination. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded the case. Read the Court's opinion [text] per Justice Kennedy, along with a concurrence [text] from Justice Breyer.

The final case Wednesday is Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England [Duke Law backgrounder], where the Court ordered a lower court to reconsider the constitutionality [JURIST report] of a New Hampshire law requiring parental notification for teenage abortions.

[JURIST] AP is reporting that the US Supreme Court [official website] has ordered a lower court to reconsider the constitutionality of a New Hampshire abortion law. In a unanimous decision in Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England [Duke Law backgrounder], the Court vacated and remanded a First Circuit ruling [text], which struck down New Hampshire's parental notification law for teenage abortions because it did not contain a medical exception to protect the health of the minor. The Court held that "If enforcing a statute that regulates access to abortion would be unconstitutional in medical emergencies, invalidating the statute entirely is not always necessary or justified, for lower courts may be able to render narrower declaratory and injunctive relief." The Court heard arguments [JURIST report] in the case in November. Read the Court's opinion [text], written by Justice O'Connor. AP has more.

[JURIST] A New Orleans judge said Tuesday that criminal trials in New Orleans could resume by March when the courts will try to deal with the 3,000 trials [JURIST report] pending before Hurricane Katrina [JURIST news archive] swept through the city. The first post-Katrina grand jury may convene in February to hear the case [JURIST report] of some 40 patients who died at New Orleans' Memorial Medical Center [hospital website] in the days following the storm. Among the obstacles for those trying to begin work again are mold-covered evidence that sat in flood water for days and only two usable courtrooms in the federal court building. AP has more.

[JURIST] News agencies in Italy reported Tuesday that Italian prosecutors plan to charge a US soldier with murdering Italian secret service agent Nicola Calipari and the attempted murder of an Italian journalist during a shooting at a US checkpoint in Iraq in March 2005. The decision comes after a joint statement [text] released last year indicated that the US and Italy had failed to agree [JURIST report] on circumstances surrounding the controversial shooting. A US investigation [JURIST report] into the incident cleared US soldiers of any wrongdoing but an Italian probe [PDF report, in Italian], while also concluding that the killing was accidental, found that there were serious miscommunications among US officials in Iraq, and confusion about the rules of engagement for checkpoints. Prosecutor Franco Ionta has yet to comment and a Pentagon spokesman said the Pentagon has not seen any charges actually filed and declined to comment. AP has more. BBC News provides a summary of the conflicting reports of what happened.

Previously in JURIST's Paper Chase...

• Italy report says US shooting of agent in Iraq unintended result of confusion, stress
• US, Italian reports split on responsibility for agent shooting after hostage release
• US, Italy fail to agree on shooting investigation
• US clears soldiers in death of Italian in Iraq
• Prosecutors question wounded Italian journalist
• Freed Italian hostage mistakenly shot by US forces

[JURIST] Switzerland's foreign affairs committee on Tuesday voted against denouncing the United States over purported secret CIA prisons in Europe [JURIST news archive] for terror suspects after members concluded they lacked sufficient evidence. Committee head Luzi Stamm told reporters that current investigations have not yielded any proof the prisons actually exist. The decision seems to contradict a report [in German] earlier this month from Swiss newspaper SonntagsBlick [media website] that claimed Swiss military intelligence [official website, in German] agents used satellite listening systems to intercept a fax [JURIST report] sent from Cairo to the Egyptian embassy in London, the contents of which confirmed the existence of the detention centers. The Swiss government has also been investigating [JURIST report] whether more than 70 secret CIA flights moving terror suspects through Switzerland's airspace were renditions [JURIST news archive] or were otherwise illegal. Swiss Senator Dick Marty [BBC profile], who has been investigating the prison and illegal renditions allegations on behalf of the Council of Europe [official website], said last week that while he had no definite proof, he was convinced that European secret service agencies have been complicit in the alleged CIA activities. AP has more.

[JURIST] Democratic Senator Ben Nelson [official website] (NE) on Tuesday became the first in his party to show his support for US Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel Alito [JURIST news archive]. Nelson, seen as a moderate leader in Congress, said in a press release that his support stemmed from Alito's "impeccable judicial credentials, the American Bar Association's strong recommendation [JURIST report] and his pledge that he would not bring a political agenda to the court." Though the majority of the Senate's 44 Democrats are expected to oppose Alito, no Democrat has threatened to filibuster, largely because they are believed to lack the 41 votes necessary to sustain a filibuster in the Senate. Reuters has more.

Previously in JURIST's Paper Chase...

• Senior Democrat warns against Alito filibuster
• Bush urges quick confirmation for Alito in radio address
• Specter announces support for Alito while Democrats seek to delay vote

ALSO ON JURIST  Op-ed: Hollow Ritual: The Alito Confirmation Hearings | Op-ed: Alito Day 4: A Steadfast Nominee and his Supporting Cast