[JURIST] An Afghan court Saturday found Asadullah Sarwari [TrialWatch profile], head of the country's intelligence department in the communist era, guilty of ordering hundreds of murders and sentenced him to death. Sarwari, who defended himself in the one-day trial, is expected to appeal the ruling that arose from his conduct under Afghanistan’s Soviet supported communist regime in 1979 [Wikipedia backgrounder]. Arrested in 1992 when Islamic guerillas gained control of Kabul, Sarwari has complained that he has been held for 13 years and eight months without due process.

Judge Abul Basit Bakhitari postponed [JURIST report] Sarwari’s trial in January for twenty days to give him the opportunity to hire a lawyer. Sarwari claimed he could not afford a lawyer, and Bakhitari had called on international organizations to provide a lawyer for him. Sarwari’s trial was the first war crimes trial [JURIST report] held in Afghanistan. AP has more.

[JURIST] The trial of 129 lawmakers, journalists and human rights activists on treason charges opened Friday in Ethiopia. The charges relate to mass demonstrations [JURIST report] in the wake of Ethiopia’s May 2005 elections; the 129 defendants were arrested after street protests in July and November [JURIST report]. The opposition Coalition of Unity and Democracy (CUD) [political party website] claims that Prime Minister Meles Zenawi “stole” the election by rigging the vote and intimidating witnesses. All but three of the defendants refused to enter a plea, and 38 defendants were charged in absentia.

Under Ethiopian law, the sentence for treason is death. In January, Federal Court Judge Adil Ahmed ordered the case to proceed when a group of the 129 defendants challenged the court’s jurisdiction [JURIST report]. The opposition members have also been barred from meeting with their defense lawyers [JURIST report] and appeared without them in court before the trial began. The Washington Times has more.

[JURIST] The US Department of Justice [official website] insisted in a court filing Friday that the information the search engine data government is seeking from Google as part of its effort to revive the Child Online Protection Act [text] would not be traceable to specific users. Google [corporate website] had previously refused [JURIST report] to comply with a subpoena [PDF text] to hand over internet search information, claiming [motion to oppose, PDF] that the government's demand to view Google users' internet search requests would violate privacy rights and their own trade secrets. The Justice Department submitted a declaration by researcher Philip B. Stark, who rejected Google's privacy concerns and stated that "[t]he study does not involve examining the queries in more than a cursory way."

The government hopes that information derived from the internet searches, which rival companies Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Inc. and Time Warner Inc. have made available, will show a wide variety of websites that people find through search engines and thus indicate that internet filters are not strong enough to prevent children from viewing pornography and other inappropriate material. All three rival companies said they did not reveal any of their users' personal information when they complied with the Justice Department's subpoenas. A hearing on the Justice Department's motion to compel Google to hand over search data is scheduled to begin in San Jose on March 13. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Utah Supreme Court [official website] Friday ruled to remove a polygamist judge from the bench, explaining that Hildale Justice Court Judge Walter Steed clearly broke the law by being married to three women at once. Steed worked as a part-time justice court judge since 1980 in the border town of Hildale, a polygamous town. The high court unanimously agreed that Steed’s personal and religious beliefs cannot violate the laws he swore to uphold while on the bench. The ruling [PDF text], written by Associate Chief Justice Michael Wilkins, stated that judges are expected to meet a higher standard of behavior than other people who simply obey the law or risk undermining society. Wilkins stated:

Civil disobedience carries consequences for a judget hat may not be applicable to other citizens. When the law is violated or ignored by thosoe charged by society with the fair and impartial enforcement of the law, the stability of society is placed at undue risk.

[JURIST] Police in Manila Saturday raided the offices of the Manila Daily Tribune [media website; Daily Tribune report] and detained several high-profile critics of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo [official website; BBC profile] of the Philippines a day after she declared a state of emergency [JURIST report] in order to stop an alleged coup against her government. Since her declaration, Arroyo has banned rallies in the country, but hundreds of opponents of her government nonetheless gathered at a Roman Catholic mass to challenge her, promising more protests until Arroyo is forced from office.

The current unrest stems most immediately from Arroyo's announcement [press release] Thursday that she intends to serve out her entire six-year term, despite allegations of election fraud that have marred her term thusfar. Although Arroyo was cleared of any fraud charges in November, political pressure on her to resign has continued. AP has more.

[JURIST] A Nigerian court in the southern city of Port Harcourt Friday ordered Royal Dutch Shell [corporate website] to pay $1.5 billion to compensate local communities for environmental pollution caused by the company's activities in the southern Niger delta region, the focus of long criticism [CorpWatch backgrounder; HRW report] by environment and rights groups. Shell's oil production activities make up nearly half of Nigeria's oil exports. The Niger delta region is largely populated by the Ijaw [Wikipedia nackgrounder]; the militant Ijaw Youths Council (IYC) [BBC profile] has been engaged in an ongoing conflict with Shell Oil and the Nigerian government for more local control of the delta's rich oil resources.

Shell stated that it could not comment on Friday's ruling because it had not yet seen the text of the opinion; however, a spokesperson said that there were "strong grounds to appeal" the decision, based on the advice of an independent expert that contends that the evidence did not support the court's decision. AP has more.

[JURIST] US District Judge Reggie B. Walton [official profile] Friday granted defense attorneys for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby [defense profile; JURIST news archive] access to Libby's personal handwritten notes taken over a nine-month period around the time that the identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame was first published in the media. Libby's defense team plans to use the notes to support Libby's claim that he did not intentionally mislead investigators when he told them where he learned of the identity of Valerie Plame. Libby faces charges [PDF indictment; JURIST report] of perjury and obstruction of justice in the CIA leak case [JURIST news archive; Libby defense website].

In a setback to Libby's defense, however, Judge Walton expressed skepticism about the defense's request [JURIST report] to turn over the highly classified intelligence documents Libby had seen while serving as Chief of Staff and National Security Advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney. Walton noted that even if he granted access to the documents, the Bush administration would not agree to release them, and he ventured that Libby's personal notes could be sufficient to remind Libby of his activities during the time in question. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has argued that the request for the highly classified documents amounts to "graymail" [Wikipedia backgrounder]; but Libby's defense team continues to reject [court brief, PDF; JURIST report that contention. The New York Times has more.

[JURIST] In a speech Friday [official transcript] in Cleveland, US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) [official website] Commissioner Mark Everson [official profile] said that the IRS had found a sharp increase in prohibited political activity by 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charities, including some churches, during the 2004 election cycle. According to an IRS study [official press release; report text], three quarters of 82 charitable organizations examined engaged in some prohibited activity such as contributing to campaigns and encouraging voters to vote for particular candidates. Most instances of improper action involved one-time occurrences that the IRS addressed with written notices to the organizations. In three cases, however, the charities' illegal activity was so egregious that the IRS threatened to revoke the charities' tax-exempt status.

Everson said he wanted to reverse the increase of improper political activity in upcoming mid-term elections this year. The New York Times has more.