[JURIST] Former Mexican president Luis Echeverria [Wikipedia profile; JURIST news archive] was under house arrest Saturday after a Mexican appeals court ruled Friday that it had enough evidence to charge him with genocide in connection with his role in putting down a 1968 student revolt [backgrounder] in which dozens, perhaps even hundreds [backgrounder, documents], of protesters were killed by police and military officers. Echeverria was Interior Minister at the time. He served as president of Mexico [JURIST news archive] between 1970 and 1976, and became notorious for fighting a "dirty war" against Mexican leftists. He is now 84.

Rights groups say that as many as 300 protestors may have been killed when government forces fired on the students. Echeverria has long denied any wrongdoing in the incident. The arrest warrant came two days before Mexicans elect a new president [press release; electoral commission website] to replace retiring Vicente Fox [official profile]. Fox, candidate of the opposition PANA party that beat Echeverria's PNI in 2000, has made the Echeverria prosecution a cause celebre of his presidency but had to this point failed to secure an arrest. In June 2005 the Mexican Supreme Court [official website] ruled 3-2 that Echeverria could be prosecuted, but judges refused to issue arrest warrants on two previous occasions, most recently in September 2005 [JURIST reports], when a court rejected a prosecutor's bid [JURIST report] claiming that the statute of limitations for genocide had run out and that the 1968 killings did not qualify as genocide. Reuters has more. From Mexico City, El Universal has local coverage [in Spanish].

[JURIST] The head of a European inspection team tasked with evaluating the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] said Friday that there may be only 30-40 "real" cases of terrorism there and recommended that the facility be shut down by the end of 2007. Anne-Marie Lizin [official website], the president of the Belgian Senate [official website] and special representative of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly [official website], the parliamentary arm of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe [official website], presented the group's findings, saying that the total number of detainees "valuable" for trial procedures could be 70-100 individuals, but only 30-40 could really be prosecuted. Lizin and her delegation visited the camp [translation of Le Soir interview] in March. One of the experts in the group commented afterwards that detainees there were treated better than in Belgian prisons [JURIST report].

Lizin's report, written before a recent release of 14 Saudi Arabian detainees [JURIST report], states that 460 detainees still remain at Guantanamo and pushes for a shutdown of the prison base due to the high number of prisoners who should not be prosecuted. While the US Supreme Court ruled [JURIST report] earlier this week that President Bush's military commissions [JURIST news archive] are illegal for Guantanamo detainees, it did not address whether the facility should be shut down. AFP has more.

[JURIST] An African Union panel recommended [HRW release] on Friday that former Chadian president Hissene Habre [Wikipedia profile; JURIST news archive], accused of committing torture, mass killings, and other abuses in the 1980s, face trial in Africa instead of in Belgium, which last September issued an international arrest warrant [JURIST report] for the ex-dictator, who has been in exile in Senegal since 1990. The panel, which was formed [JURIST report] after Senegal announced it was "not competent" [JURIST report] to rule on Belgium's extradition request, recommended that Habre face trial back in Senegal, which has twice refused to prosecute Habre already, or in Chad or in any of the 45 African countries that have adopted the international Convention Against Torture [text]. The panel identified Senegal as the best place for the trial and confirmed that the country has jurisdiction.

The announcement has sparked criticism from victims' lawyers and Human Rights Watch [advocacy website], which has been the most vocal rights watchdog pushing to have Habre brought to justice. The European Parliament urged Senegal to try Habre in March, and last May, the UN Committee against Torture [official website] gave Senegal 90 days to extradite [JURIST report] him to Belgium. IRIN has more.

[JURIST] Federal prosecutors Friday argued that the homes and other assets owned by former Enron [corporate website] executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling [Houston Chronicle profiles] were obtained by fraud, and petitioned a judge to order the two men to turn over nearly $183 million in assets. Last month, a jury in Houston convicted [JURIST report] Lay on all six fraud and conspiracy counts [verdict slip, PDF] against him, and convicted Skilling of 19 out of 28 securities and wire fraud and insider trading counts [verdict slip, PDF].

Prosecutors must show that the pair acquired the property and money using funds from their roles in the corporate conspiracy scandal. Lay and Skilling will be sentenced [JURIST report] later this year with Lay facing a maximum of 45 years in prison for conspiracy and fraud, while Skilling faces a maximum sentence of 185 years for his conviction. The Washington Post has more.

[JURIST] The new Human Rights Council of the United Nations [official website] voted Friday to review alleged human rights [JURIST news archive] abuses by Israel [JURIST news archive] in all future council sessions, a move which was protested by both Israel and the US as unfair. Islamic countries lobbied in favor of the resolution, which passed 29-12, while Israel said the measure simply perpetuated the former Human Rights Commission's bad habits of unfairly criticizing and singling out Israel. The council also voted to hold a special session on human rights in Palestine [UNOG press release] and other Arab territories next week. AP has more.

Friday marked the end of the Council's inaugural session [JURIST report] in Geneva; the host Swiss delegation called the meeting a great success, but said the body faced a major challenge in its regular human rights reviews of all 191 UN member states. Jean Daniel Vigny, a member of Switzerland's Permanent Mission to the UN Office and Other International Organizations in Geneva [official website], said the UN body had to treat all nations equally in their review of human rights abuses and complete reviews within the mandated 3-year period. The Swiss delegates are organizing a conference for late August where member states will discuss formal procedures for the human rights reviews. Swissinfo has more.

[JURIST] A spokesman for California Attorney General Bill Lockyer [official website] Friday criticized the California State Office of Homeland Security [official website] for tracking antiwar protests over the past few months, calling it a violation of civil liberties. Reports obtained by the Los Angeles Times document protests including a demonstration where US Rep. George Miller (D-CA) [official website] spoke against the war in Iraq, a gathering organized by the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom [advocacy website] to support an antiwar protestor charged with federal trespassing, and an animal rights rally. Speaking on behalf of the attorney general, Tom Dresslar said the monitoring violated the protestors' constitutional right of free speech and does not serve a necessary anti-terrorism intelligence function.

Chris Bertelli, a spokesman for the state office, said the reporting began in March, but officials stopped the practice as soon as they learned it was occurring. Bertelli said the reports were only given to the California Highway Patrol [official website] and the attorney general's office, and nothing else was done with the information. The communications director for California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger [official website] said the governor found the information-collecting "inappropriate and unacceptable" and had no knowledge that such practices were taking place. The Los Angeles Times has more.

[JURIST] Lawyers for several Guantanamo [JURIST news archive] detainees claimed Friday that the US military had seized letters from them to their clients and had also taken other legal papers from their clients in an investigation into three inmate suicides [JURIST report] at the camp last month. Defense Department officials have refused to comment on the allegations. A lawyer for one detainee said his client had told him that guards were looking for evidence perhaps suggesting that lawyers had encouraged inmates to commit suicide, a proposition that another lawyer said was simply "ludicrous."

A spokesman for the Center for Constitutional Rights [advocacy website], which represents several detainees, called the seizure of papers "a huge breach of attorney-client privilege." AP has more.

[JURIST] Sen. John Warner (R-VA) [official website] said Friday that Congress must be cautious about passing an alternative to military commissions [DOD materials; JURIST news archive] at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive], which were struck down [JURIST report] by the US Supreme Court [official website] earlier this week. Warner is chairman of the US Senate Armed Services Committee [official website] and will lead hearings [press release] on the issue in July. He said Congress must use "careful analysis" to pass legislation that would gain approval by the high court if challenged a second time around. US lawmakers are tasked with balancing the Supreme Court's mandate that detainees must be given some basic rights and the White House's contention that being too lax poses more terrorism threats.

Both Democrats and Republicans have criticized the Bush administration for not working with Congress on the issue previously, including Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) [official websites]. Specter originally offered legislation in 2002 [Specter floor statement] to create a process of military trials for detainees that the White House refused, instead insisting upon using the military commissions it created [Military Order text]. Specter proposed legislation [Baltimore Sun report; draft bill text, DOC] again this week for a type of military commission, which would provide rules for protecting classified information, a three-member decision panel including at least one judge advocate general, and evidence standards which would allow hearsay. President Bush said Thursday that he plans to work with Congress [JURIST report] to establish a system that falls within the high court's mandates.

Sen. Warner said the July hearings will include judge advocates from all branches of the military to decide the right type of trial for suspected terrorists. Courts-martial [Wikipedia backgrounder] seem to fall in the middle between civilian courts, which would offer detainees the most rights, and military commissions, which offer the fewest. If a type of court-martial is approved as the future trial procedure, suspected terrorists will encounter a jury made up of military officers, a streamlined bill of rights, convictions only if three quarters of the jury agree, and less strict rules of evidence than civilian courts. Saturday's New York Times has more.