[JURIST] Lebanese Interior Minister Hassan Sabeh resigned his post Sunday after rioters protesting the Danish publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad [JURIST news archive] set fire to the Danish embassy in Beirut [JURIST report]. Sabeh had been criticized [Beirut Daily Star editorial] for failing to protect the building; he said that security forces using tear gas and batons had been unable to stop "thousands" of rioters, but explained that he had declined to authorize police to open fire on the crowd as "I did not want to be responsible for any carnage." Aljazeera has more. Some 174 people were arrested in the disturbance, almost half of whom Lebanese officials say are Syrian. The Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus were torched by protestors [JURIST report] Saturday, possibly with the Syrian government's tacit backing [Independent report]. Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora is quoted as saying “Those who are committing these acts have nothing to do with Islam or with Lebanon.” The Financial Times has more.

[JURIST] Khalil Dulaimi [JURIST news archive], chief defense lawyer for deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein [JURIST news archive], said Sunday he had been notified by "the Americans" that defense lawyers for Hussein and his co-defendants would not be allowed access to their clients. This is the first time that lawyers have been denied access to Saddam since he was granted the right to counsel in December 2004. The development comes after Hussein, four co-defendants and defense lawyers boycotted trial proceedings [JURIST report] before the Iraqi High Criminal Court - formerly the Iraqi Special Tribunal [official website] - in protest against new chief judge Ra'uf Rasheed Abdel-Rahman [BBC profile, JURIST report], who was named chief judge after Rizgar Mohammed Amin resigned [JURIST report] last month. Dulaimi claimed that the court has "already passed a sentence even before the trial has ended." The trial has been adjourned [JURIST news archive] until February 13 but Dulaimi stated, "We will hold on to the decision to boycott the trial and not to participate in any future sessions until our reasonable demands for a fair, honest, and transparent trial that brings out the truth are met." Read the Saddam defense team's press release. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Interpol [official website] Sunday issued an urgent global security alert [press release] following the escape from a prison in Yemen [government website] of 23 individuals, some of them suspected Al Qaeda members. Among the fugitives is Jamal Ahmed Badawi [MIPT profile], the mastermind behind the 2000 terror attack [US DOD inquiry report] on the USS Cole [ official website], sentenced [JURIST report] to fifteen years in jail for his role in the attack. The 12 convicted Al Qaeda escapees include Fawaz al-Rabeei, who was convicted for the 2002 attack on the French tanker Limburg [BBC News report]. The escape took place Friday through a 460-foot underground tunnel which led the prisoners to a nearby mosque where they escaped amidst the crowd [AFP report]. Intel has requested that Yemen release the names, photographs, fingerprints and all other details on the prisoners so international arrest warrants could be issued. The international police agency also warned that these fugitives are "deemed a serious threat to the entire world community by the UN Security Council, by Interpol and by a wide range of countries" and urged that nations take measures to protect their borders. The New York Times has more.

[JURIST] Steven Bradbury [SourceWatch profile], acting head of the US Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel [official website], told Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) [official website] in a closed Senate Intelligence Committee [official website] meeting last week that the president may have the executive power to order the killing of terrorist suspects inside the US. During a closed-door session, Feinstein is said to have questioned Bradbury about President Bush's domestic surveillance program [JURIST news archive] and the extent of executive powers to fight Al Qaeda. In response to an hypothetical example offered by Feinstein, Bradbury said he believed it within the president's power to order a killing, in certain circumstances. An unnamed Justice Department official has since said Bradbury's comments were in the context of a theoretical discussion and that practical policy would be to capture the terrorist alive in order to interrogate him. Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte [official profile], and Robert Mueller [official profile], Director of the FBI, have both said they did not know of a situation in which a US agency would be authorized to order the killing of an Al Qaeda suspect in the US. Newsweek has more. In its shockingly broad construction of executive power the Bradbury statement is reminiscent of a December 1 statement by former Bush administration legal advisor John Yoo [Berkeley faculty profile] in a Chicago debate that there is no law that could prevent the President from theoretically ordering the torture of a child of a suspect in custody [Mathaba report] – including by crushing that child’s testicles.

[JURIST] Current and former intelligence officials and private sector sources, speaking anonymously, have said that the National Security Agency warrantless surveillance program [JURIST news archive] monitoring communication coming from outside the US to US residents has yielded few actionable results, according to a Sunday report in the Washington Post. Fewer than 10 US citizens or residents a year, according to an authoritative account, have aroused enough suspicion during eavesdropping to justify interception of their domestic calls as well, which would require a warrant from a federal judge. This low rate of success adds to concerns that the program is unlawful under the Fourth Amendment because a search cannot be judged reasonable if based on unreliable evidence. The Washington Post has more.

US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales [official profile] will defend the program at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing [official notice] on Monday. He is expected to reiterate the administration's position that the program is not governed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) [text] but rather by a 2001 Congressional resolution [PDF text] authorizing the use of military force against al Qaeda. He is also expected to say that media reports about the program are misleading [TIME report]. He may be in for tough questioning, however. Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter said in an NBC Meet the Press interview [transcript] Sunday morning that he found several of Gonzales' contentions made in preliminary responses to written Committee questions [JURIST document] to be "strained" and "unrealistic", particularly in regards to the Authorization to Use Military Force:

The authorization for the use of force doesn’t say anything about electronic surveillance, issue was never raised with the Congress. And there is a specific statute on the books, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which says flatly that you can’t undertake that kind of surveillance without a court order.

[JURIST] Thousands of Lebanese Muslims angered at caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten [Jyllands-Posten archive in English] in September and last week were reprinted in other European newspapers [JURIST report] protested outside the Danish embassy in Beirut [official website] on Sunday and a small group set fire to the building [DR recorded video]. In a scene reminiscent of Saturday's protests [JURIST report] in Damascus, Syria where protesters burned the Danish and Norwegian embassies, police fired tear gas and water cannons in an attempt to disperse the crowd. Security officials said at least 18 people were injured, including policemen, fire fighters and protesters. An anonymous security official said embassy staff had evacuated the building two days ago in anticipation of protests and the Danish Foreign Ministry has urged Danes to leave Lebanon as soon as possible. Both Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and Lebanese Grand Mufti Mohammed Rashid Kabbani denounced the violence and urged calm. The Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs [official website] has posted a Q/A on the publication of the cartoons. Jyllands-Posten has apologized [JP letter to readers] for their original publication, but many newspapers across Europe have insisted on their dissemination and republication as a legal instance of free expression. AP has more.

[JURIST] Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki [official profile] confirmed Sunday that Iran had ceased cooperating with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) [official website], allowing the country to resume uranium enrichment without being subject to IAEA inspections. The move, ordered Saturday by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad [official website] by voluntarily suspending [press statement] Iran's adherence to the 1997 Additional Protocol to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty [model text, PDF; ACA fact sheet, PDF], comes in response to Saturday's IAEA vote [JURIST report] approving a UN resolution [PDF text] to report Iran to the UN Security Council over concerns with its nuclear program. Iran still plans to attend talks with Russia [MosNews report] on February 16 to discuss the possibility of moving its uranium enrichment activities to Russian territory, a move which it is hoped might convey Iran's commitment to the development of nuclear energy, not nuclear weapons. AP has more.