[JURIST] Former US Navy General Counsel Alberto J. Mora [official profile] warned the Pentagon as early as 2002 that legal arguments advanced by Bush administration officials seeking to avoid international prohibitions against torture were wrong and could lead to the abuse of detainees. In a memo dated July 7, 2004 obtained by the New Yorker magazine and disclosed in its forthcoming February 27 print edition, Mora described an unsuccessful two and a half year campaign he fought against administration policies launched well before it became publicly known that US military personnel had abused Iraqi detainees at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison [JURIST news archive]. In the 2004 memo Mora also claimed that Navy intelligence officers reported in 2002 that Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] military interrogators were using increasingly high levels of abuse, in line with levels supposedly authorized in Washington. Mora told the New Yorker, "I was appalled by the whole thing. It was clearly abusive and it was clearly contrary to everything we were ever taught about American values."

Notes from Pentagon meetings in early 2003 obtained by ABC News in June 2005 disclosed that Mora had expressed concern at that time that aggressive US interrogation practices could implicate superiors in law-breaking [ABC report]: "use of coercive techniques...has military, legal, and political implication...has international implication...and exposes us to liability and criminal prosecution." Mora retired from the Defense Department earlier this year and is now General Counsel for Wal-Mart.

Last week more photos and video images emerged [JURIST report] of US abuses of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib, and a UN human rights panel accused the US of torture at Guantanamo and called upon the US to close the camp [JURIST report]. AP has more.

8:23 AM ET 2/20/06 - The New Yorker report is now available online, along with a copy of the 2004 Mora memo [PDF].

[JURIST] National Air Traffic Services [official website], the UK's air traffic control provider, have reported that three CIA flights possibly involved in rendition landed at British airports and received assistance from UK air traffic control since 2001. The admission by the civil aviation body in response to parliamentary questions is said to be the first acknowledgement of official awareness and UK involvement in CIA rendition practices [JURIST news archive] transferring al Qaeda suspects to secret prisons for interrogation. Although the UK Ministry of Defence [official website] has refused to answer questions on the subject and Prime Minister Tony Blair [official website] has denied he has any knowledge of the flights, seventy-six CIA planes are alleged to have made stops in Britain since the September 11 attacks.

Earlier, in response to a leaked memo [PDF text; JURIST report] suggesting that there had been more requests for rendition flights from the US than the four 1998 requests that British legislators were already aware of, UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw [official website] denied [JURIST report] that he withheld any information from Parliament concerning Britain's involvement in secret CIA rendition flights and also said there had not been any flights through Britain since the September 11 attacks.

The US government has defended its rendition actions as proper [JURIST report] and consistent with treaties and international law despite accusations from Human Rights Watch [HRW backgrounder] and other organizations. The Independent has more.

[JURIST] English Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith [official profile] has told top British military officers that British soldiers will not appear before the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] on war crimes charges. The statement, the government's first assertion that British troops will not be forced to stand trial in front of the new Hague-based international criminal tribunal, comes amidst new allegations of maltreatment of Iraqi detainees by British troops. Britain's Ministry of Defense [official website] said last week that it is investigating [JURIST report] video images published last Sunday in the British News of the World [report; full video] tabloid that show British soldiers beating four young Iraqi men they detained after a street disturbance in southern Iraq in 2004. Several British soldiers have already been arrested in the probe.

A number of British soldiers are already facing court-martial [JURIST report] for other alleged abuses of Iraqis, although charges against seven soldiers in connection with a 2003 incident were dropped [JURIST report] in November. Meanwhile, an investigation into an alleged 2003 "execution" shooting of an unarmed Iraqi in retaliation for the killing of a British officer that has two soldiers facing possible murder charges and one a charge of manslaughter has reportedly been stalled [Times report] by senior military officers.

In December 2005, the House of Lords ruled [JURIST report] that British law forbids UK soldiers in Iraq from subjecting Iraqi prisoners to cruel or degrading treatment while in their custody. Making his statement denying ICC jurisdiction over British troops in war crimes matters, Lord Goldsmith said, "We strongly take the view that no British service personnel will appeal before the ICC as its jurisdiction only applies if a nation is unwilling or unable to investigate [allegations of war crimes]." The Telegraph has more.

[JURIST] Saddam Hussein [JURIST news archive] could be put to death by hanging within months if he's convicted in his first trial, according to the chief prosecutor for the Iraqi High Criminal Court, formerly the Iraqi Special Tribunal [official website]. In an interview reported in the London Sunday Times, Ja'afar Moussawi said that a new Iraqi law mandates that death sentences be carried out within 30 days of an appeal failing, regardless if other charges are still pending against an accused. Moussawi estimated that the current trial has "passed the 75% mark" and indicated that an appeals panel of nine judges has already been assembled. A possible execution of Hussein at the end of his first trial could leave unanswered questions, however, and might disappoint Iraqis seeking justice for other crimes of the Saddam regime.

Since Tuesday, Saddam has supposedly been on hunger strike [JURIST report] in protest at the way newly appointed [JURIST news archive] chief judge Ra'uf Rasheed Abdel-Rahman [BBC profile] has been treating Hussein and his co-defendants, facing charges of murder, torture, forced expulsions and illegal imprisonment stemming from a 1982 massacre in Dujail [JURIST report]. Trial proceedings have now been adjourned until February 28. The Times has more.

[JURIST] Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi [official website; BBC profile], facing possible indictment [JURIST report] for allegedly bribing his former lawyer to give false testimony in two criminal cases, told supporters at a campaign rally in Verona Saturday that the case against him is "...without proof, completely baseless, which however has become a media and political fact," according to the Italian news agency ANSA. Milan prosecutors Friday announced [AP report] they had completed their investigation and would be seeking charges, although under Italian law those can only be laid by a judge after a 20-day period during which defense lawyers can file objections.

This would not be the first indictment against Berlusconi; in September 2005 he was cleared of false accounting charges [JURIST report] and in June 2005 he was acquitted on bribery charges [JURIST report]. The Irish Examiner has more.

[JURIST] Influential radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr [Aljazeera profile] has parted ways with his partners in the biggest Iraqi parliamentary bloc by rejecting the federal system described in the new Iraqi constitution [PDF text, JURIST news archive]. Al-Sadr told Aljazeera on Saturday, "If there is a democratic government in Iraq, nobody has the right to call for the establishment of federalism anywhere in Iraq whether it is the south, north, middle or any other part of Iraq." The comments would seem to reopen a highly contentious political issue: minority Sunnis have also objected to the federal system [JURIST report], fearing that Kurds and Shiites will use it to leverage too much control over Iraq's oil. Aljazeera has more.

[JURIST] A Saturday protest by Nigerian Muslims in the northeastern city of Maiduguru over the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad [JURIST news archive] led to sectarian violence in which at least 15 people were killed, 15 Christian churches were burned, and dozens arrested before rioters were stopped by police. The death toll was the highest in any cartoons-related demonstration in the past three weeks. AP has more. In Jakarta, Indonesia, more than 200 members of the militant Islamic Defenders Front [MIPT backgrounder] protested [AP report] outside the US embassy [official website], banged on the gate and threw rocks, eggs, and tomatoes at the building. In a statement to Reuters, US Ambassador B. Lynn Pascoe [official profile] called the protest a staged media event and added that the US shared Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's belief "that the cartoon issue should not be used as a wedge between cultures." In Pakistan, Danish Ambassador Bent Wigotski closed the Danish embassy there and returned to Copenhagen. A statement by the Danish Foreign Ministry [official website, English], said "... it is practically impossible for him to do his job under the current circumstances." Pakistan has been rocked by a series of protests and arrests [JURIST news archive] related to the cartoons in recent days. AP has more.

Meanwhile, three Saudi newspapers - Asharq al-Awsat [official website, English], al-Riyadh, and al-Jazira - Sunday published advertisements by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten [website on the controversy, English], where the offending cartoons were first printed in September. The ads included an apology from the editor reading in part, "Allow me in the name of Jyllands-Posten to apologize for what happened and declare my strong condemnation of any step that attacks specific religions, ethnic groups and peoples. I hope that with this I have removed the misunderstanding." AP has more.