[JURIST] In the wake of public urging [White House statement] from President Bush, Congressional leaders Friday took steps to damp down a brewing constitutional conflict with the US Department of Justice over a weekend FBI search [JURIST report] of the offices of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA). House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) backed away from a Thursday statement [text] co-signed by Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) demanding the return of documents [JURIST report] seized. Hastert said he would work with the Justice Department to establish protocols for the FBI to review the seized documents rather than escalate the constitutional separation of powers debate [JURIST report] over whether the FBI's executive powers can extend to the seizure of legislative documents. President Bush on Thursday sealed the documents for 45 days, though White House press secretary Tony Snow said the President has not taken a side on the issue.

Also on Friday, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales met to discuss the specific question of how the Jefferson investigation should be conducted, as well as the broader question of how searches and seizures of members of Congress and their papers and effects should be conducted in the future.

The FBI said in an affidavit [text] that it had videotaped Jefferson accepting a $100,000 bribe from an informant. Former Jefferson former aide Brett Pfeffer pleaded guilty [Times-Picayune report] in January to bribery charges for brokering deals between Jefferson, a businesswoman-turned-FBI-informant, and a Nigerian businessman where Jefferson was to transfer a bribe from the informant to the businessman as part of a telephone infrastructure deal. AP has more.

[JURIST] An ongoing investigation into the November 2005 deaths of two dozen Iraqi civilians in the city of Haditha has yielded evidence indicating that the US Marines may have committed murders, according to a senior military officer speaking to AP Friday on condition of anonymity. The investigation was launched in March [JURIST report] after a TIME magazine report [text] alleged that the soldiers may have killed civilians without justification after a roadside bomb killed Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas. The soldiers may have violated the US law of war [UCMJ provisions] and the international law of armed conflict [ICRC materials] if they committed murder and/or failed to positively identify the enemy and determine whether there was hostile intent before firing on civilians. Though the AP source did not disclose the nature of the evidence, a piece may be a video [AP report] aired by an Arab television station that allegedly shows pictures of the aftermath of the killings, including the bodies of women and children.

A congressional aide said Friday that members of Congress were briefed on the investigation Thursday, and both the House and Senate armed services committees plan to hold hearings on the incident. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service [official website] is conducting the investigation and is expected to issue a report within 30 days. Marine Commandant General Michael W. Hagee [official profile] said Wednesday that the Marines involved in the incident will face charges [JURIST report], and on Thursday he took the unusual step of flying out to Iraq to stress [USMC press release] to his troops the importance of avoiding war crimes [Washington Times report]. In a message to Marines, Hagee said:

The nature of this war with its ruthless enemies, and its complex and dangerous battlefield will continue to challenge us in the commitment to our core values. We must be strong and help one another to measure up. The war will also test our commitment to our belief in the rule of law.

We have all been educated in the Law of Armed Conflict. We continue to reinforce that training, even when deployed to combat zones. We do not employ force just for the sake of employing force. We use lethal force only when justified, proportional and, most importantly, lawful. We follow the laws and regulations, Geneva Convention and Rules of Engagement. This is the American way of war. We must regulate force and violence, we only damage property that must be damaged, and we protect the non-combatants we find on the battlefield.

[JURIST] Martha Stewart [JURIST news archive] has opted to deny allegations of insider trading brought in a civil lawsuit by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) [official website; JURIST news archive] rather than settle the charges. Stewart's Thursday response to an SEC complaint [text] claims she acted in good faith and rejects accusations that she used insider tips to make the decision to sell nearly 4,000 shares of ImClone Systems, Inc. [corporate website] stock in 2001. Additionally, Stewart maintains that she sold the ImClone stock in accordance with and agreement she had with her stockbroker, Peter Becanovic, to sell the stock when it dropped below $60. The SEC wants to bar Stewart from reclaiming her position of CEO and chairman of the company she founded, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc. [corporate website], as well as bar her from holding an officer position at any other publicly traded company. The SEC complaint was originally filed [SEC press release] in 2003 when Stewart was indicted in criminal court, but was stayed pending the criminal proceedings.

Stewart recently completed [JURIST report] a five-month prison sentence followed by a five-month house arrest sentence under her 2004 criminal conviction [JURIST report] for lying to federal investigators in connection with her sale of ImClone stock. The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld her conviction in January [JURIST report]. If Stewart loses this SEC lawsuit, she will potentially face up to three times the losses she avoided by selling her ImClone stock one day before the Food and Drug Administration declined to review a cancer drug developed by ImClone. AP has more.

[JURIST] AP is reporting that the federal judge in the CIA leak case against former Vice-Presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby [defense profile] has granted part of Libby's request to issue subpoenas to TIME magazine and the New York Times for correspondence and other journalistic materials related to the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity [JURIST news archive].

1:33 PM ET - Judge Reggie B. Walton's memorandum opinion [PDF] is now available online. Concluding a 40-page judgment, he wrote:

The First Amendment does not protect news reporters or news organizations from producing documents when the news reporters are themselves critical to both the indictment and prosecution of criminal activity....

[T]here can [also] be no doubt that the defendant could overcome any common law reporters’ privilege. First, as already stated, the only documents that are at issue are those that are relevant and admissible. Accordingly, those documents, by their very nature, are documents that will make it more or less probable that the defendant committed the charged offenses. Specifically, the documents sought by the defendant here will challenge the credibility and recollection of the news reporters whose conversations with the defendant form the factual predicate for several offenses in the indictment. Thus, these documents are crucial to the defendant’s case and go the heart of his defense. Moreover, the very nature of these documents, i.e., reporters’ notes and their draft articles, could only be obtained from the movants; thus, there are no alternative sources for acquiring these documents.

[JURIST] A federal judge has ordered the US Department of Defense to expedite processing of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) [text; DOJ materials] request submitted by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and several student groups regarding the alleged use of a terrorist database to spy on organizers of demonstrations against military recruiters on college campuses in April 2005. The judge only ruled that the DOJ should speed up its response to the FOIA request, saying the information is related to "a breaking news story of significant importance to public policy and public protests," and did not comment on whether the request should actually be granted. The information may be exempted from FOIA requests for national security reasons.

The ACLU complaint [PDF text] alleges that the DOD spied on student protest organizers with the TALON database, which was reviewed by the Pentagon [Washington Post report] after complaints surfaced that the database was being used for purposes other than preventing terrorist attacks. CBS News has more.

[JURIST] Following US Senate passage of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 [S 2611 summary; JURIST news archive] on Thursday, observers suggested Friday that President Bush is likely to play an important role in reconciling the Senate plan with the more conservative Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act [PDF text; summary] passed by the House last year. Bush has repeatedly called for immigration reform [JURIST report], and supports a guest worker program and a "path to citizenship" for the 12 million illegal immigrants currently working in the US, provisions contained in the Senate bill but not the House version.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King (R-NY), a potential House negotiator on the legislation, expressed the view of many of his House colleagues on Friday by announcing that he will not support any bill that provides a "path to citizenship" for illegal immigrants. The Senate version, while preventing convicted criminals from ever becoming US citizens, allows workers with five years of US residency to apply for citizenship after paying a $3,200 fine and back taxes and satisfying other requirements. The security-oriented House bill, narrowly approved last December [JURIST report], makes unlawful presence in the US a felony subject to deportation and could punish humanitarian groups aiding illegals. In his Saturday radio address [transcript] last week, Bush said he would sign a compromise bill that reflects a "rational middle ground between automatic citizenship for every illegal immigrant and a program of mass deportation." Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who supported the Senate bill [press release], called Friday for the House and Senate to reach a compromise before the November elections. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Court of Appeal in London [official website] Friday refused to grant a stay of extradition to Farid Hilali, an alleged UK contact for the September 11 hijackers who is being deported to Spain to face terrorism charges for associating with convicted Al-Qaida member Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas [Washington Post report]. Yarkas is suspected of leading an al-Qaida cell in Spain [JURIST report], and Hilali has been directly linked to the Sept. 11 attacks by a Spanish judge for allegedly contacting [BBC report] Yarkas during the weeks preceding the attacks.

Hilali is appealing the first use of the new European arrest warrant [EU backgrounder], which is intended to replace the slower extradition process that can take years to complete. Hilali's extradition was first approved [JURIST report] by a lower UK court last June, where he unsuccessfully argued that if the UK extradited him to Spain, Spain would subsequently transfer him to his home country of Morocco, where he could be tortured, thus violating the UK Human Rights Act of 1998 [text]. That judge said that Spain may not transfer Hilali to Morocco without the UK's approval, and the Court of Appeals judge who upheld that ruling on Friday found unpersuasive the seven arguments put forth by Hilali for denying the extradition order. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] A court in Moscow on Friday upheld a ban on an international gay pride parade [program, PDF] scheduled to take place in the Russian capital on Saturday after gay activists appealed the decision [GayRussia.ru report] of Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov [MosNews profile] rejecting the application of parade organizers. The mayor's office last week stated that the parade marking the 13th anniversary of the decriminalization of homosexuality in Russia would likely provoke violence, but parade organizers have said they will disregard a ban and still hold the parade [Radio Free Europe report]. Additionally, Luzhkov said last fall that citizens of Moscow "would be categorically against such an initiative" [Radio Free Europe report].

Earlier, Russian Christian Muslim leaders had expressed dissatisfaction with the parade proposal. A Muslim cleric in February stated that the paraders should be "thrashed by decent people" [BBC report], and the head of the Muslim Spiritual Board in Central Russia, Talgat Tadzhuddin, stated that Muslim anti-pride protests could be worse than the recent worldwide protests over cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad. MosNews has more.

[JURIST] A Russian judge Friday found Nurpashi Kulayev [Wikipedia profile] guilty of all charges for his role in the September 2004 Beslan school siege [BBC backgrounder; MosNews report], sentencing him to life in prison. Kulayev was charged [JURIST report] with terrorism and murder, and earlier this month, the judge ruled [JURIST report] that Kulayev committed an act of terrorism over the defendant's denial that he killed anyone [JURIST report] during the attack. The defendant also claimed that he was forced to participate in the seige by terrorists, though the judge said this claim conflicted with the evidence.

Kulayev was the lone survivor of the three-day September 2004 hostage crisis where the attackers kept 1,300 hostages, mostly children, in a school building while they demanded that Russian soldiers leave Chechnya as a term of surrender. Many hostages died when the school roof collapsed in flames during a rescue effort. The judge said Kulayev would have received the death penalty, but for the Russian moratorium on capital punishment [Pravda report]. Several critics have suggested the government should bear some responsibility for the deaths of the hostages, alleging the government provided inadaquate medical care and should not have used heavy artillery before the hostages were released, and a Russian panel said last year that local police were negligent in ignoring orders to increase security at the school [JURIST report]. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] The UK Parliament Joint Committee on Human Rights [official website] took the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair to task Friday for urging [JURIST report] the European Court of Human Rights [official website] to revisit its absolute prohibition against deporting people to states where they may be tortured and for entering into diplomatic agreements with those states purporting to guarantee good treatment for detainees. The Committee made its points in the context of a new report [text] on UK compliance with the terms of the UN Convention Against Torture [text].

Addressing the government's expressed intention to intervene in an ECHR case involving the interpretation of its 1997 ruling in Chahal v UK, the case that established the torture deportation ban, the Committee said:

Whilst we acknowledge the Government's right to intervene in any appropriate case before the European Court of Human Rights, we are concerned that the intervention...in arguing for deportations of terrorist suspects despite a real risk of torture on their return, may send a signal that the absolute prohibition on torture may in some circumstances be overruled by national security considerations. We reiterate our view that the absolute nature of the prohibition on torture precludes any balancing exercise between considerations of national security and the risk of torture. In our view, the principle established in Chahal v UK is essential to effective protection against torture, and accordingly should be maintained and respected.

We consider it unlikely that the Government will succeed in its attempt to secure a revision of the Chahal decision. We note that even if the Government were to succeed, the absolute prohibition on torture, and on expulsion to face a real risk of torture, would in any event remain binding on the Government under the Convention Against Torture, and any expulsion carried out despite a real risk of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment would be likely to breach these obligations.

The evidence we have heard in this inquiry, and our scrutiny of the Memoranda of Understanding agreed between the Government and the Governments of Libya, Lebanon and Jordan, have left us with grave concerns that the Government's policy of reliance on diplomatic assurances could place deported individuals at real risk of torture or inhuman and degrading treatment, without any reliable means of redress....

We therefore agree with the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, the European Commissioner for Human Rights and others that the Government's policy of reliance on diplomatic assurances against torture could well undermine well-established international obligations not to deport anybody if there is a serious risk of torture or ill-treatment in the receiving country. We further consider that, if relied on in practice, diplomatic assurances such as those to be agreed under the Memoranda of Understanding with Jordan, Libya and Lebanon present a substantial risk of individuals actually being tortured, leaving the UK in breach of its obligations under Article 3 UNCAT, as well as Article 3 ECHR. We are also concerned that Memoranda of Understanding lack enforceable remedies in an event of a breach of the terms of the Memoranda.

[JURIST] The Belarus Ministry of Justice [official website] has asked the Belarus Supreme Court to close down the Belarus Helsinki Committee [advocacy website], a leading human rights group that has consistently criticized the authoritarian government of President Alexander Lukashenko [official website; BBC profile]. A Ministry motion to the Supreme Court accused the local Helsinki Committee, chartered in 1995 to protect human rights following the Helsinki Accords [text], of posting unauthorized observers at 2004 parliamentary elections [OSCE materials], of occupying office space reserved for residential housing and of committing tax violations.

The move is the latest in an ongoing dispute between the government and the Committee; last fall, the United States urged Belarus to stop harassing the human rights organization [US State Department report]. AP has more.

[JURIST] As the British Ministry of Defence [official website] continues investigating the deaths of several Iraqi detainees in British military custody [Scotsman report], a military tribunal judge on Thursday found a British soldier not guilty of manslaughter for allegedly forcing a 15-year-old Iraqi to swim across a Basra canal where he drowned. Recently-appointed Vice Judge Advocate General Michael Hunter [profile] did not explain his not guilty ruling to defendant Lance Cpl. James Cooke, 22, of the Irish Guards [official website], an infantry unit of the British Army.

Three other soldiers involved in the incident are still on trial, and have argued that they did not threaten to shoot the Iraqi teenager if he did not swim across the canal, as prosecutors allege. AP has more.

[JURIST] The full US Senate has approved the nomination of Air Force General Michael Hayden [official profile] to head the Central Intelligence Agency [official website] by a vote of 78-15 [roll call]. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) was notably one of the senators opposed. The nomination went to the Senate floor Thursday after the Senate Intelligence Committee approved it 12-3 [JURIST report].

During Intelligence Committee hearings last week, Hayden - a former director of the National Security Agency (NSA) - stressed [JURIST report] the legality and importance of the NSA's warrantless domestic surveillance program [JURIST news archive]. He refused, however, to answer questions about agency phone records collection.

[JURIST] The US Senate on Friday confirmed the nomination of White House staffer Brett Kavanaugh [White House backgrounder] to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia by a margin of 57-36 [roll call] after a test vote Thursday cleared the way for his approval [AP report]. Kavanaugh faced probing questions [JURIST report] from the Senate Judiciary Committee during confirmation hearings, but received the go ahead along party lines [JURIST report] for a full floor vote. Democrats had voiced strong opposition to Kavanaugh's nomination, calling it narrowly partisan [Reid speech] and expressing dismay over the 41-year-old nominee's inexperience and recent downgrade [JURIST report] from "well qualified" to "qualified" [ratings, PDF; White House response] by the American Bar Association [profession website].

Democrats had threatened a filibuster [JURIST report] to stop the nomination, but retreated in their efforts after Kavanaugh testified [JURIST report] in committee that he had no role in the Bush administration's policy towards detainees or warrantless surveillance [JURIST news archives], and had no relationship with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Kavanaugh, initially nominated for the bench three years ago, formerly worked as an assistant to independent counsel Kenneth Starr during the impeachment investigation of President Bill Clinton and also campaigned for President Bush during the 2000 election. AP has more.

[JURIST] Mexican President Vicente Fox [official profile] on Thursday applauded the US Senate's approval of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 [S 2611 summary; JURIST news archive] that would tighten border security and allow illegal immigrants to follow a path to citizenship. Though Fox has criticized parts of the bill, including a 370 mile fence along the Mexican border [JURIST report] and the potential for the militarization of the border when up to 6000 National Guard troops come in [JURIST report] to help the Border Patrol, he avoided mentioning his protests while addressing California lawmakers [speech transcript, in Spanish] Thursday. Instead, Fox focused on strengthening economic ties between the US and Mexico [JURIST news archive], hoping that investment will help create Mexican jobs and lower the necessity for Mexicans to look north for work. Fox said:

We have pursued this course with the firm conviction that a legal, safe, orderly migration policy with full respect to human rights and labor rights will benefit the security and prosperity of both our nations.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit [official website] on Thursday remanded [opinion text, PDF] an appeal from the Atlanta-based Cobb County School District [official website] asking the court to overturn [JURIST report] a district court decision [text; JURIST report] requiring the school district to remove stickers in their biology textbooks calling evolution "a theory, not a fact." The three-judge panel asked the district court to determine if the public school district's actions were "religiously neutral," implying that the stickers may stay if they do not represent a government endorsement of religion. In order to do so, the district court must consider whether the government pressured the school district into adopting the sticker policy.

Cobb County originally instituted the sticker policy in response to complaints from some parents claiming that the textbook represented evolution as fact without including any rival theories about the creation of life. Other parents of some of the students in the district later sued, claiming the policy violated the separation of church and state under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment [text]. Students and staff last year removed stickers [JURIST report] from 35,000 biology textbooks pending appeal of the case. AP has more.

[JURIST] In the wake of Thursday's release [JURIST report] by UK Attorney General Lord Goldsmith [official profile] of a disclosure statement [text] outlining his actions in rendering advice on the legality of the Iraq war to the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair in the days before invasion, government critics and media have called for further action, describing the statement as inadequate. Labour Party MP Clare Short [BBC profile], a former Minister for International Development who resigned from the Cabinet in protest over the war and has since become a thorn in the government's side, has urged a "high-level judicial or parliamentary inquiry" and the release of e-mails showing how policy developed, which she suggested would show what kind of pressure was put on the Attorney General to find that the war was legal. The Independent newspaper which initially brought the complaint under the UK Freedom of Information Act [text] which led to the release meanwhile said Friday that the facts set out in the disclosure statement "fail to satisfy The Independent's request for all documents, e-mails, memos and minutes relating to the formulation of the Attorney General's advice" and that it would be appealing the order [PDF] of Information Commissioner Richard Thomas to the Information Tribunal [official website].

Goldsmith said in the disclosure statement that after expressing some reservations about the legality of the pending war against Iraq in an initial March 7, 2003 memorandum text] [text] he backed the use of force [text] in Parliament on March 17, 2003 "after further reflection, having particular regard to...discussions with...representatives of the US Administration." The Independent has more.

[JURIST] A spokesman for the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission [advocacy website] in Kandahar said Friday that some 34 Afghan civilians were killed in a US airstrike on a village in the south of the country earlier this week along with about 35 "unknown people" believed to be militants. The number of estimated civilian deaths is over twice that originally reported. Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has already called for an investigation into the incident [Pajwhok report].

Civilian casualty levels in the Afghan south have risen in recent weeks with an increased number of clashes between Taliban groups and US-led coalition forces. On Monday the International Committee of the Red Cross said [statement text] it was "deeply concerned about the worsening situation and its effects on civilians" and called on all "parties to the conflict to respect the rules and principles of international humanitarian law." AP has more.