[JURIST] As many as 300 reformist judges in Egypt who have called for more judicial independence [JURIST report] from the government led by President Hosni Mubarak [official profile] staged a silent protest in front of the High Court Thursday as hundreds of protesters cheered. Though protesters were greatly outnumbered by riot police, the demonstration unfolded without the violent confrontations [JURIST report] with police seen earlier in the month.

The protests have centered on two Egyptian judges who complained of alleged fraud in last year’s parliamentary elections [JURIST report] and later faced charges and on the recent extension of emergency laws [JURIST report] in effect since the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat [CNN profile]. VOA has more.

[JURIST] In a reversal of his position from only a day earlier, Bosnian Prime Minister Adnan Terzic [BBC profile] announced Thursday that he would form a commission to probe war crimes carried out in the current capital city of Sarajevo [official website] during the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s. Terzic, who has been pushing Bosnia toward greater integration with Europe, plans to balance the investigation by including both Serb and Muslim leaders who controlled areas of the city.

Thousands of Sarejevo's residents died as a result of the conflict [BBC backgrounder]. Though most were killed in the military bombardment, some were captured and killed by paramilitary forces [JURIST report]. VOA has more.

[JURIST] The US Senate [official website] has approved the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 [S 2611 summary] by a vote of 62-36 [roll call]. The bill would set millions of illegal immigrants on a path to potential citizenship and would authorize a temporary worker program. Thirty-two of the thirty-six senators voting against the bill were Republicans, including Trent Lott, Rick Santorum, and Orrin Hatch. Republican Senators Arlen Specter, Bill Frist, Chuck Hagel, John McCain and most Democrats supported the legislation. The vote follows several weeks of debate [JURIST report] during which senators made several changes to the bill, including:

• authorizing state governors to deploy National Guard troops to the Mexican border;
  
  
• creating an additional 370 miles of fencing along the US-Mexico border;
  
  
• preventing illegal immigrants convicted of a felony or three misdemeanors from "participating in a program that places them on a pathway to citizenship";
  
  
• imposing fines on employers of undocumented workers; and
  
  
• adding provisions on the status of the English language in the United States [JURIST reports].

[JURIST] A three-judge panel of the US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals [official website] heard defense arguments in the appeal of three guilty bench verdicts handed down in 2004 to three US Muslims in the 'Virginia Jihad network' case [JURIST report]. Masoud Khan was convicted of conspiracy to levy war against the United States and conspiracy to contribute services to the Taliban, and Seifullah Chapman and Hammad Abdur-Raheem were convicted of lesser terror-related conspiracy charges for their participation in paintball games in 2000 and 2001 that federal judge Leonie Brinkema found were sponsored by Taliban recruiting group Lashkar-e-Taiba [BBC profile]. The three defendants are seeking to reverse the convictions handed down by Brinkema, who also presided over the recently-concluded Zacarias Moussaoui trial [JURIST news archive] .

Lawyers for Chapman and Abdur-Raheem argued that their clients' Seventh Amendment right to an impartial trial by jury was violated when they were forced to choose between a bench trial and a jury trial that would be tainted by the more serious charges against Khan and the public sentiment inflamed by the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Khan's counsel also argued that the trials should have been separated, saying that his client was pressured into the bench trial by his co-defendants. The Fourth Circuit panel seemed receptive to the arguments of the US Attorney prosecuting the case, who said the defendants must take responsibility for their deliberate tactical decision to submit to a bench trial. AP has more.

[JURIST] Following an order from the British Information Commissioner, UK Attorney General Lord Goldsmith [official profile] on Thursday made public additional details [disclosure statement text] concerning the process surrounding the release of his March 7, 2003 memorandum [text] expressing some reservations about the legality of the pending war against Iraq and events leading up to his March 17, 2003 statement to Parliament that he believed the invasion was legal [statement].The British government came under fire last year for reportedly manipulating Goldsmith's legal justifications for the Iraq war [JURIST report]. The government had previously released [JURIST report] the March 7 memo but Information Commissioner Richard Thomas [official website] ordered the disclosure of the additional details under the UK Freedom of Information Act [text; fact sheet, PDF; BBC Q&A].

Thomas ordered the disclosure [enforcement notice, PDF; press release] because:

the balance of the competing public interest tests calls for disclosure of the recorded information which led to, or supported, the concluded views which were made public by the Attorney General in his 17 March Statement. As the government chose to outline an unequivocal legal position, on such a critical issue at such a critical time, the balance of the public interest calls for disclosure of the recorded information which lay behind those views. By this means the public can better understand the background and rationale behind that published Statement and the extent to which reliance upon those final conclusions was in fact justified.

But I have also concluded that the arguments for maintaining the exemptions are sufficiently powerful that the balance of the competing public interests does not require the disclosure of those parts of the requested information which were of a preliminary, provisional or tentative nature or which may reveal legal risks, reservations or possible counter-argument. Nor is disclosure needed where it would prejudice the UK's relations with other countries.

[JURIST] The US House Judiciary Committee [official website] on Thursday voted 20-13 to approve the full committee markup of the Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act of 2006 [HR 5417 text], the 'net neutrality' bill sponsored by Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI). The bill applies federal antitrust law to alleged breaches of 'net neutrality,' or situations where broadband service providers either accept money from content providers in exchange for increased bandwidth, or interfere with the content of broadband competitors.

While one Republican voting against the bill said that the judiciary is best suited to determine how the antitrust laws should apply to broadband providers, other Committee members said they supported the bill not because it is good law, but to establish Judiciary Committee jurisdiction over the net neutrality issue itself. CNET has more.

[JURIST] The US Treasury Department [official website] announced on Thursday that it will no longer defend [press release] in court the federal excise tax on long-distance telephone calls [Tax Foundation backgrounder], and will issue refunds to taxpayers of all monies paid on the tax since litigation began three years ago. Treasury Secretary John Snow estimates the refund, which will be included in 2007 tax refunds, could cost the Treasury as much as $13 billion.

Federal appeals courts have consistently sided against the Treasury Department against the tax, which was instituted in 1896 as a luxury tax on telephone calls to finance the Spanish-American War, and it was raised during each subsequent armed conflict, peaking at a 10% penalty during Vietnam. The excise tax was set to expire in the eighties, but budget concerns led to the Revenue Reconciliation Act of 1990, which permanently froze the tax at 3%. Critics attacked the tax as a user fee for long-distance calls. Snow also called on Congress to repeal the local telephone exist tax. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Lawyers for former Russian nuclear minister Yevgeny Adamov [Kommersant profile; JURIST news archive] announced Thursday their intention to appeal to the Russian Supreme Court a Moscow City Court decision [RIA Novosti report] to extend Adamov's detention until June 8. The defense lawyers said the extension was "groundless," and argued that prosecutors signed a document certifying that they have finished case preparations, while the prosecution says they need more time to develop their case. Adamov faces fraud and abuse of power charges in Russia.

Adamov was arrested [JURIST report] in Switzerland in May 2005 on a US warrant. The US government alleges that Adamov appropriated $9 million given to Russia by the US Department of Energy for nuclear security improvements, but last month, a US prosecutor called the US case against Adamov 'pointless' [JURIST report] because the Russian government has insisted that if Adamov is to be tried, he will be tried under Russian law. After a series of legal battles [JURIST report] between the US and Russia, he was extradited to Russia in December 2005, and Russia is not expected to send Adamov to the US to face charges either before or after the Russian case against Adamov is concluded. RIA Novosti has local coverage.

[JURIST] Sameeh Hammoudeh, a co-defendant in a Florida terrorism case with former University of South Florida computer science professor Sami Al-Arian [advocacy website; JURIST report], was deported earlier this week, according to Hammoudeh's attorney. Federal officials took Hammoudeh to his home state of Jordan on Tuesday, where he crossed the border into the West Bank. A former teaching assistant and Ph.D. candidate at USF, Hammoudeh was acquitted [JURIST report] on charges of raising money for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad [CDI backgrounder] because jurors believed there was not enough evidence for a conviction. Though Hammoudeh was acquitted in December, immigration officials continued to hold him, prompting Hammoudeh's attorney to sue the government to expedite his deportation. A US Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement [official website] spokesman explained that ICE held Hammoudeh in part because they needed to organize documents for the deportation.

Al-Arian, though acquitted on eight of 17 terrorism charges [JURIST report], later pleaded guilty [JURIST report] to a lesser charge of conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist organization and be deported. Earlier this month a Florida federal court sentenced Al-Arian to 18 more months [JURIST report] in prison for the guilty plea, crediting him for time already served, before he too will be deported. AP has more.

[JURIST] US House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) has said that his committee will hold an oversight hearing [press release] into the constitutionality of the FBI's 18-hour raid [JURIST report] last Saturday night of the congressional offices of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) [official website]. The FBI says it videotaped Jefferson accepting a $100,000 bribe from an informant. Calling the raid "unprecedented," Sensenbrenner said the FBI's conduct "raises profoundly disturbing constitutional questions that must be addressed." The hearing is scheduled for Tuesday.

Earlier this week, House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) said that the FBI's executive power to prosecute lawbreakers does not authorize the agency to seize legislative documents and that the FBI's conduct violated separation of power principles [JURIST report]. Hastert then co-wrote a statement [text] with Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) demanding that the FBI return all seized legislative documents [JURIST report]. CNS News has more.

Meanwhile Thursday, Hastert accused the Justice Department of retaliating [AP report] against his criticism of the raid by leaking his name to the press in connection with the ongoing investigation into former lobbyist Jack Abramoff [JURIST news archive]. The DOJ released statements denying the leak immediately after ABC News reported late Wednesday night that the DOJ was investigating Hastert's involvement in the Abramoff scandal. Hastert sponsored the Lobbying Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 [HR 4975 summary] that was passed by the House [JURIST report] earlier this month.

3:17 PM ET - AP is reporting that President Bush has ordered that the documents seized from Jefferson's office be sealed for 45 days.

[JURIST] CNN is reporting that the jury in the 16-week criminal fraud and conspiracy case against Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling [Houston Chronicle profiles] has found both defendants guilty. Lay and Skilling were charged [final redacted indictment, PDF] with multiple counts of fraud and criminal conspiracy for providing investors with false and misleading financial information from 1999 up until Enron filed bankruptcy in late 2001, but the defense remained steadfast throughout the trial in their complete denial of guilt. Jury deliberations began six days ago [JURIST report] after the judge agreed to lower the standard of proof [JURIST report] usually employed in fraud trials so that Lay and Skilling could potentially be convicted of "deliberate ignorance." Read part 1 [PDF] and part 2 [PDF] of the jury instructions and the verdict form [PDF].

Skilling faces 28 counts of fraud, conspiracy, insider trading and lying to auditors and a maximum of 275 years in prison [PDF document] if convicted on all counts. Lay faces six counts of fraud and conspiracy with a combined maximum punishment of 45 years [PDF document]. Lay is also defending himself in a related bench trial against charges that he violated loan promises when he borrowed $75 million and used some of the money to buy Enron stock.

12:47 PM ET - The jury convicted Lay on all six fraud and conspiracy counts, and convicted Skilling of 19 out of 28 securities and wire fraud and insider trading counts. He was found not guilty of nine counts of insider trading. CNN has more.

[JURIST] A US bankruptcy judge in New York City on Thursday declined to extend an order to block the sale of the controlling stake of Mazeikiu Nafta [corporate website], the largest oil refinery owned by crippled oil company Yukos [corporate website; JURIST news archive]. As a result, Yukos is expected to finalize the sale of the Lithuanian-based refinery to Poland based oil company PKN Orlen [Wikipedia backgrounder] for $1.425 billion on Friday, in an unexpected turnaround from previous speculation that Yukos would sell Mazeikiu Nafta to the Lithuanian government. Kazakh oil group KazMunaiGaz, however, may outbid PKN by Friday [MosNews report] and throw a wrench into the sale indicating that Yukos did not exhaust all of its options in seeking the best deal for its shareholders.

Eduard Rebgun, appointed to manage the company by a Moscow court hearing a Yukos bankruptcy case, sought to halt the sale [JURIST report] in April over the objections of self-exiled Yukos Chief Executive Steven Theede because he feared PKN could not finance the sale. The New York court issued an injunction in April [MosNews report], and extended it several times until Thursday's ruling, where Judge Robert Drain opined that the risks of Yukos not closing the deal outweighed the concerns over how PKN may finance the sale. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] A panel of federal judges headed by US District Judge D. Brock Hornby [official profile] of Maine has begun considering whether members of the federal bench should have their way paid to private seminars. Federal judges are currently allowed to go on expense-paid trips as long as they report the travel, but travel financed by private organizations has recently gained attention in Washington DC, where top Democratic Senators John Kerry (MA), Patrick Leahy (VT) and Russ Feingold (WI) [official websites] want to bar federal judges from attending seminars [Leahy press release and bill text; JURIST report] sponsored by special interests unless their own courts pay the expenses. Along somewhat more general lines, US House Republicans have introduced a bill [press release] that would create an inspector general for the federal judiciary to investigate possible ethical violations, a move which the federal courts say is unecessary [JURIST report]. The panel of judges will eventually make a recommendation to the federal judiciary on whether they should ban expense-paid trips.

The Community Rights Counsel (CRC) [advocacy website], an environmental organization, gave the panel records [CRC press release] Wednesday indicating that tobacco and oil companies have helped finance private judicial seminars hosted by conservative groups, including the George Mason University-based Law and Economics Center [education website] and the Montana-based Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment [foundation website]. Both conservative groups have responded that they do receive funding from tobacco and oil companies, but deny that they use it to host private seminars for the judiciary and that they do not reveal who their donors are to the seminar attendees. Earlier, CRC gave the panel evidence of 22 judges taking expense-paid trips without reporting them. AP has more.

[JURIST] Belarus [JURIST news archive] plans to appeal decisions by the European Union and the United States to ban Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko [official website; BBC profile] and other top government officials from entering their jurisdictions, according to a Lukashenko spokesman. Lukashenko on Tuesday instructed his government to prepare appeals against the decisions to be taken to international courts. Belarus Ministry of Foreign Affairs [official website] press secretary Andrei Popov stated that the travel bans "violate the principles of the Helsinki Accords [text] related to freedom of travel."

The US issued a travel ban [JURIST report] on Lukashenko and associates last week, while the EU issued a travel ban [JURIST report] shortly after the March presidential election [BBC report] in Belarus. Western nations have criticized the March election, which saw Lukashenko returned to a third term in office with over 80% of the popular vote, as crippled with fraud [JURIST report]. RIA Novosti has more.

[JURIST] Congress has approved and sent to President Bush for his signature a measure designed to prevent demonstrators from getting close to military funerals at national cemeteries. The US Senate approved the final version of the Respect for America's Fallen Heroes Act [HR 5037 summary; PDF text] by unanimous consent Wednesday, and the US House followed suit with a voice vote. The bill targets the renegade Westboro Baptist Church [WARNING: readers may find material at this church website offensive; Wikipedia backgrounder] led by the Rev. Fred Phelps of Topeka, Kan., which claims US soldiers have been killed because America tolerates homosexuals. The bill would bar protesters within 300 feet of a national cemetery's entrance and within 150 feet of a road into the cemetery for an hour before and an hour after a funeral. Violators would face up to a year in prison and a possible $100,000 fine.

The House passed a similar bill [JURIST report] earlier this month. Phelps immediately complained of free speech violations and said he would continue to lead demonstrations in accord with the bill's restrictions. Similar legislation has been passed or proposed in states such as South Dakota [JURIST report] and Oklahoma [text, RTF], and the federal legislation urges more states to pass such measures. AP has more.

[JURIST] Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker [official profile], whose country held the EU presidency when France and the Netherlands [JURIST reports] voted against the European constitution, said Thursday that Germany's push to ratify the European Constitution [official website, text; JURIST news archive] will not be easy. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has repeatedly pledged to revive the constitution [JURIST report] when Germany assumes the EU presidency in January. Juncker noted, however, that French and Dutch elections will take place a few weeks before Germany's six-month term ends, leaving little time to ratify the constitution.

At next month's European Council summit, EU officials are expected to extend the ongoing "period of reflection" on the constitution through mid-2007. Earlier this week, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso [official website] suggested that the constitution should not be reconsidered until 2008 [AFP report]. EU Politix has more.

[JURIST] The US Department of Justice [official website] argued Wednesday in a court filing that the US courts have traditionally been "ill-equipped" to judge harm to national security and that the executive branch should therefore decide whether information surrounding the US National Security Agency (NSA) [official website] domestic surveillance program [JURIST news archive] should be disclosed. The DOJ made the claim in a response brief [PDF text] in the US District Court in San Francisco, where a class action lawsuit [EFF materials] alleging that AT&T illegally let the government monitor its clients' telephone and e-mail conversations has been brought by privacy rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) [advocacy website]. Because the case involves military and governmental secrets [JURIST report], US officials want Chief District Judge Vaughn Walker [SF Chronicle profile] to review classified evidence implicating national security issues and not disclose the materials to the plaintiffs. EFF says failing to disclose the evidence would violate due process. The US is also bringing a motion to dismiss the case.

Last week, lawyers for AT&T made an unsuccessful bid [JURIST report] for the return of documents, collected by a former AT&T technician, that supposedly detail cooperation between the company and the NSA wiretapping program. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for June 23. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] A Tokyo District Court judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by South Korean families seeking damages for affronting the dignity of South Korean soldiers by recording their names in the Yasukuni Shrine [official website; BBC backgrounder], which commemorates the 2.5 million casualties of Japanese conflicts since 1869. The soldiers, whom Japan drafted while Korea was a Japanese colony, were enshrined after the government released the names of those wounded and killed during World War II. More than 400 descendants of the South Korean soldiers sued the Japanese government to revoke the governmental notification of the death toll. The plaintiffs demanded a combined 4.4 billion yen (about $39 million US) in damages. In dismissing the lawsuit, the judge said the notification was a standard administrative procedure that did not harm the plaintiffs or violate their ethnic or religious dignity. Moreover, the postwar Japanese-South Korean treaties release Japan from all obligations to individual South Korean citizens for injuries arising out of World War II.

Other names recorded at the shrine include those of 14 Class A war criminals, the most infamous of whom is Prime Minister Gen. Hideki Tojo [Wikipedia profile]. Annual visits to the shrine by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi [official website] have prompted condemnation [JURIST report] from China and South Korea. Mainichi News has local coverage. BBC News has additional coverage.

[JURIST] A judge from the Iraqi town that is the focus of the ongoing Saddam Hussein trial [JURIST news archive] was abducted by gunmen Wednesday. Dujail Judge Walid Ahmed was kidnapped from his car on the highway between Tikrit and Samarra, according to an Interior Ministry source. It is unclear whether the abduction was related to the trial. Last week, the 22-year-old son of a top Iraqi judge, along with two of his bodyguards, was killed by gunmen [JURIST report] in Baghdad, and well over a dozen other Iraqi jurists and lawyers involved in the constitutional drafting process, in the trial of Saddam Hussein, or simply working in dangerous areas of the country have been murdered in the last couple of years since the US-

Hussein is on trial in Baghdad for a crackdown against Shiites in Dujail following an assassination attempt in 1982, including the execution of 148 townspeople. Hussein and his co-defendants could receive the death penalty if convicted of crimes against humanity for overseeing the killings. AFP has more.

[JURIST] US Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald [official website] suggested Wednesday that Vice President Dick Cheney may be a witness in the government's case against former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby [defense profile; JURIST news archive], who is being prosecuted in connection to the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity [JURIST news archive]. Fitzgerald believes Cheney's testimony would help the government's case because Cheney can confirm that he wrote notes on a 2003 New York Times op-ed in which former US Ambassador Joseph Wilson criticized the US-led war in Iraq, and that the vice president gave the article to Libby and discussed the fact that Wilson's wife, Plame, was a CIA operative. Cheney's notes [image] read:

Have they done this sort of thing before? Send an ambassador to answer a question? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did his wife send him on a junket?

[JURIST] A high-ranking US Army officer testified Wednesday in the court-martial [JURIST report] of Sgt. Santos Cardona, the second of two soldiers accused of using unmuzzled dogs [JURIST report] to terrify detainees during interrogations at the Abu Ghraib [JURIST news archive] detention center in Iraq. Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller [Wikipedia profile], the former commander of military intelligence at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive], told the military jury that when he visited Iraq in 2003 to review interrogation methods at Abu Ghraib, he suggested the use of dogs for "maintaining custody and control" of detainees, but that he never mentioned using them for intimidation purposes during interrogations. Shortly after Miller's visit to Abu Ghraib, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez [official profile, PDF], then commander of US forces in Iraq, issued new interrogation guidelines that appeared to allow the use of dogs.

Miller refused to testify in the court-martial of Sgt. Michael Smith, who was convicted of similar charges and sentenced to six months in jail [JURIST report] earlier this year, but he agreed to testify [JURIST report] last month for the defense in Cardona's trial. While Cardona's attorney expected Miller's testimony to prove that Cardona merely followed orders from above, it is not clear how much Miller's testimony will actually help Cardona. The New York Times has more.