[JURIST] Three US Marines have been charged with assault in the village of Hamdania in April this year, according to a late Thursday report by AP, citing US military officials. The April 10 incident came to light during a military investigation of seven Marines and one Navy corpsman [JURIST report] charged in June with the murder and kidnapping of an Iraqi civilian in the same village on April 26. Charges against a fourth Marine are pending. AP has more.

Reports circulating Wednesday had suggested that Corps was preparing unspecified charges against four Marines [JURIST report]. Marine Corps western US defense coordinator Lt. Col. Colby Vokey said that he learned of the new charges when the military told him to find attorneys for the men.

8/4/06 - Additional information disclosed Friday indicates that a total of six Marines have been charged for assaulting Iraqi civilians on April 10. Three of the six were Marines originally charged in the April 26 death. AFP has more.

[JURIST] As a panel of three federal judges heard arguments Thursday about how to redraw Texas' 23rd Congressional District without diluting minority votes in violation of the Voting Rights Act [text; DOJ backgrounder], US Circuit Judge Patrick Higginbotham said Rep. Henry Bonilla (R-TX) [official website] will likely be "the odd man out" when the lines are redrawn. Bonilla's district stretches from Laredo north to San Antonio and west to parts of El Paso. The new map will likely make for a much more competitive race for Bonilla, giving Democrats a chance to pick up a seat in Texas, where Republicans have dominated recently.

The Supreme Court ruled in League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry [JURIST report; Duke Law case backgrounder] and three other consolidated cases in June that the 23rd District, as redrawn by Republicans in 2003, violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. AP has more. The Houston Chronicle has local coverage.

[JURIST] A group of Missouri voters lacking acceptable identification under a Missouri law [SB 1014 summary; text] that requires voters to show photo IDs at the polls [MO Revenue Dept. backgrounder] filed a lawsuit Thursday, claiming the law could keep people from the polls in November. Though the plaintiffs claim they are unable to cast regular ballots in the upcoming elections because of their lack of proper IDs, the new law does allow voters who can't produce IDs to cast provisional ballots that will be checked against signatures in election records.

Last month, Missouri Democratic Party officials filed a class-action lawsuit [JURIST report] seeking a permanent injunction against the enforcement of the law, which was signed by Gov. Matt Blunt [governor's press release] in June. A federal district judge in Georgia recently issued a preliminary injunction [JURIST report] against similar legislation after suggesting that it could discriminate against some voters. AP has more.

[JURIST] Texas Republicans cannot remove former US House Majority Leader Tom DeLay [JURIST news archive] from the November congressional ballot, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit [official website] ruled [PDF] Thursday. Tina Benkiser, chairwoman of the Texas Republican Party [party website] wanted to take DeLay's name off the ballot because he now lives in Virginia, but the court refused to allow DeLay's name to be removed [opinion, PDF], saying Benkiser's actions were unconstitutional. The court reasoned that anyone who lives in the state on the day of the election is eligible to run for a congressional seat according to the US Constitution. The Texas Democratic Party [party website] argued that DeLay's wife still lives in the couple's home outside Houston, making it possible that DeLay could return to their residence before election day.

The Fifth Circuit panel was considering [JURIST report] an appeal of a decision [PDF text] by US District Court Judge Sam Sparks [official profile] to keep DeLay's name on the ballot. DeLay resigned from Congress [JURIST report] earlier this year after winning a March primary for his congressional seat. He is awaiting a Texas trial on money laundering and conspiracy charges [JURIST report] for allegedly using corporate money to fund legislative campaigns. The Texas Republican Party says it will appeal the ruling to the US Supreme Court. AP has more.

[JURIST] Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko [official website; BBC profile] on Thursday accepted the nomination [press release] of political rival Viktor Yanukovych [BBC profile] to serve as the country's prime minister, ending weeks of speculation that Yushchenko's rejection of the nomination would prompt a constitutional crisis [JURIST report]. Yanukovych's Party of the Regions [party website] won the most votes in March parliamentary elections, but did not secure an outright majority. The Party of the Regions formed a coalition Thursday with Yushchenko's Our Ukraine party [party website] and Yushchenko formally submitted Yanukovych's nomination to parliament. Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada [official website], is expected to approve Yanukovych as prime minister on Friday.

Yushchenko and Yanukovych were fierce rivals in the 2004 presidential election [JURIST report], the results of which were invalidated by the country's Supreme Court [JURIST report] following fraud allegations. Yushchenko was sworn in as Ukraine's president [JURIST report] in January 2005 on the wings of the populist Orange Revolution [BBC timeline] after winning a re-vote. The latest political upheaval in Ukraine [JURIST news archive] was prompted by a parliamentary vote in January to dissolve the government [JURIST report], leading Yushchenko to criticize constitutional changes that have limited his authority and expanded parliamentary powers and to call for a new constitution [JURIST reports].

Yushchenko decided to accept Yanukovych as prime minister after the latter agreed to sign a National Unity Pact [press release] that preserves certain pro-Western elements of the president's agenda, including amending the Ukrainian Constitution [text] to include a "checks and balances" system and taking steps toward joining the European Union. Had Yushchenko refused to accept Yanukovych as prime minister, he would have been forced to dissolve parliament and call for new elections. The speaker of parliament had promised to disobey an order to dissolve parliament [Reuters report] and other members of parliament threatened to impeach Yushchenko [AP report] if new elections were called. BBC News has more.

[JURIST] North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley [official website] Thursday signed into law [press release] a bill establishing an innocence inquiry commission [H1323 summary] which will review appeals by inmates who claim they have been wrongly convicted. The North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission is modeled after the system in the United Kingdom [CCRC website] and is the first of its kind in the US. Inmates who have new evidence to present which was not previously considered in court can bring their innocence claims to the eight-member panel beginning in November. If five or more commission members consider the evidence to be a potential consideration for innocence, the case will then go to a group of three North Carolina Superior Court [official website] judges. A unanimous decision by the three judges is necessary to overturn a conviction.

The innocence commission was prompted based on wrongful convictions in several high profile cases in North Carolina, including Darryl Hunt [advocacy website; Wikipedia profile], who was found innocent of murder based on DNA evidence after serving 18 years in jail, and Alan Gell, who was released from death row based on evidence that prosecutors purposefully withheld in his trial. AP has more.

[JURIST] US-based monitoring group Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] said Thursday that indiscriminate Israeli air and artillery strikes on Lebanese civilians cannot be systematically dismissed as accidents [HRW statement] and called several of Israel's attacks "war crimes" in a new report [text]. HRW has been investigating the continuing Middle East conflict [JURIST news archive] by interviewing attack survivors, officials from Lebanon's government, members of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) [official website], and by visiting hospitals and bomb sites. Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said:

The pattern of attacks shows the Israeli military’s disturbing disregard for the lives of Lebanese civilians. Our research shows that Israel’s claim that Hezbollah fighters are hiding among civilians does not explain, let alone justify, Israel’s indiscriminate warfare.

Hezbollah fighters must not hide behind civilians – that’s an absolute – but the image that Israel has promoted of such shielding as the cause of so high a civilian death toll is wrong. In the many cases of civilian deaths examined by Human Rights Watch, the location of Hezbollah troops and arms had nothing to do with the deaths because there was no Hezbollah around.

The building [destroyed in the Qana raid] was targeted in accordance with the military's guidelines regarding the use of fire against suspicious structures inside villages whose residents have been warned to evacuate, and which were adjacent to areas from where rockets are fired towards Israel. The guidelines were drafted based on surveillance and study of the behavior of the terrorists, who use civilian structures inside villages to store weaponry and hide in after launching rockets attacks.

Since July 12th over 150 rockets were launched from within the village of Qana itself and the immediate surrounding area. The residents of Qana and the villages surrounding it were warned several times, through various media, to evacuate the area.

The IDF operated according to information that the building was not inhabited by civilians and was being used as a hiding place for terrorists.

Had the information indicated that civilians were present in the building the attack would not have been carried out.

[JURIST] German Chancellor Angel Merkel [official website] called the conditions in the remote Siberia prison [JURIST report] holding former Yukos [corporate website] Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky [MosNews profile; JURIST news archive] "unacceptable" in a letter published Thursday, and said that the German government had called on Russia to respect international rights standards. Merkel made the comments in response to a call by Germany's opposition Free Democrats [official website] for her to raise Khordorkovsky's imprisonment with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

In June, prison authorities placed Khodorkovsky in solitary confinement for the third time [JURIST report] after violating a prison rule. Khodorkovsky was convicted in May 2005 of tax evasion [JURIST report], and the government effectively nationalized Yukos to pay off $33 billion in back taxes. The remaining Yukos assets will likely be sold this year. Bankruptcy proceedings [BBC report] began in late March for Yukos, while Yukos vice president Vasily Aleksanyan was charged [JURIST report] with embezzlement and money laundering in early April. MosNews has more. Berliner-Zeitung has local coverage.

[JURIST] The new French iTunes copyright legislation [legislative materials, in French] went into effect Thursday, allowing French regulators to force Apple Computer [corporate website] to make its iPod player compatible with songs downloaded from other Internet music stores, and downloads from its iTunes service compatible with other players. The French Senate and National Assembly gave final approval [JURIST report] to the legislation in June, and the Constitutional Council threw out several challenges to the law last week.

In statements [Appleinsider report] released earlier this year, Apple predicted that the bill will cause its music sales to drop, and some industry analysts expect the legislation to cause Apple to abandon the French market for downloadable music. The bill is France's attempt to implement the EU Copyright Directive [materials; JURIST report]. Similar proposals have arisen [Newsfactor report] in Britain, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Poland. AP has more.

[JURIST] Nepal's High Level Probe Commission Thursday questioned army chief Pyar Jung Thapa as part of the panel's continuing investigation of alleged human rights abuses during pro-democracy protests [JURIST news archive] in April which brought an end to the 14-month direct rule of King Gyanendra [official profile; BBC profile]. Dilli Raman Acharya, spokesman for the five-member commission, said 84 royal ministers and lead security members who served under Gyanendra have been summoned for similar questioning [JURIST report]. Several individuals also came to the commission's headquarters Thursday to lodge accusations against Thapa for injuries they suffered during the protests, but Nepalese police arrested at least four complainants for what they called "unruly behavior." Thapa told the commission that the army was following orders to suppress the Maoist insurgency [BBC backgrounder] and that the army's actions were not designed to end the protests [NepalNews.com report].

The commission, headed by a former supreme court justice, is tasked with investigating the government's response to the protests which resulted in almost 20 deaths and hundreds of injuries. The body, which was formed under the interim government of Nepal [JURIST news archive], has the authority to interrogate officials, issue warrants, and make recommendations regarding actions which should be taken against rights abusers. AFP has more. eKantipur.com has local coverage.

[JURIST] Four US Army soldiers charged [JURIST report] with the premeditated murder of Iraqi detainees refused to testify during their Article 32 hearing [Navy JAG backgrounder] Thursday, following the lead of several superior officers who invoked their right not to incriminate themselves at the hearing. The four men from the Third Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division [GlobalSecurity backgrounder] - Sergeant Raymond Girouard, Specialist William Hunsaker, Pfc. Corey Clagett and Specialist Juston Graber - are accused of deliberately murdering three Iraqi detainees and then covering up the murders during a May 9 raid on an alleged insurgent training camp near Tikrit.

One soldier in the unit testified that he witnessed the detainees fleeing the soldiers when the soldiers opened fire, while the unit's medic testified that one of the three detainees was still alive when the medic checked on him, but heard a single shot while the medic returned to his humvee that likely killed the third detainee. Another squad member, Lemuel Lemus, provided a sworn statement [JURIST report] in June, saying that the four soldiers committed murder and even wounded themselves to make it appear as though the detainees had assaulted the soldiers. Civilian defense lawyers for the four men claim that Colonel Michael Steele, the well-known brigade commander that led a botched 1993 mission in Somalia depicted in the book and movie Black Hawk Down [Wikipedia backgrounder], ordered the soldiers to kill all military-age men prior to the raid. Steele and three other witnesses have refused to testify at the hearing, which began on Tuesday [JURIST report]. AFP has more.

[JURIST] A Malawian court Wednesday sentenced the former principal secretary in the country's Ministry of Education [official website] to two years in jail for "aiding and abetting the theft of public funds," making him the most senior civil servant to be sentenced as the African nation continues a crackdown on corruption. Sam Safuli was originally suspended in 2000 from his post as education secretary and has been found guilty of authorizing a $1,000 payment to a building contractor in 1999 even though the builder never finished his contract to complete a school construction job.

The charges against Safuli stem from a larger conspiracy plot that led to the arrest [JURIST report] of former Malawi [government website; BBC country profile] President Bakili Muluzi [BBC profile] last week for 42 counts of corruption, fraud and theft. Those charges were dropped [JURIST report] Monday. Malawi's parliamentary public accounts committee found that Muluzi supporters were awarding building contracts, but the money was then being re-routed to Muluzi's presidential campaigns which allowed him to stay in office for 10 years until 2004. The charges against Muluzi were dropped after his hand-picked successor to the presidency, Bingu wa Mutharika [official profile; BBC profile], suspended the head of the country's Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) [official website]. Sapa-AFP has more.

[JURIST] British anti-war campaigners have unveiled a legal campaign against the British government's involvement in the ongoing Middle East conflict [JURIST news archive], seeking to stop flights carrying weapons sent from the United States to Israel from stopping at British airports. Human rights lawyer Aamer Anwar [Scotsman profile] said that by British authorities were facilitating attacks on civilian targets in Lebanon [JURIST report] and are therefore complicit in war crimes. US flights believed to be carrying bombs and other hazardous materials have stopped at Britain's Prestwick Airport and RAF Mildenhall airport amid protests at each airport.

Anwar said six different legal challenges were being considered, all "advanced in the name of Lebanese citizens who have family that have been injured, killed or are missing as a result of the Israeli operations." The lawsuits will argue that by allowing the flights the British government violated the European Convention on Human Rights [text, PDF], the Geneva Conventions [ICRC materials] and the International Criminal Court Act 2001 [text]. IC Liverpool has more.

Reports surfaced last week that the US had violated British air transport safety regulations [JURIST report] in routing "smart bombs" to Israel through the UK, prompting comments from UK Foreign Minister Margaret Beckett [official profile] that a formal complaint would be made to the US if it was confirmed that rules were broken. Beckett's warning was followed by an apology from President Bush [JURIST report] for the shipment problems, though a US Defense Department spokesman insisted that all protocols had been properly followed. UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said Thursday that he didn't object to US use of British airports to transport arms to Israel, so long as the flights adhere to aviation rules. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Following up on previous consultations with Republican lawmakers [JURIST report], US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales [official profile] said on Capitol Hill Wednesday that Congress should clarify the definition of war crimes prohibited by Common Article 3 [text] of the Geneva Conventions [ICRC materials], suggesting that "a definite and clear list of offenses serious enough to be considered war crimes" would "achieve ... clarity and certainty" on the issue of when US troops can be prosecuted for interrogation techniques that violate the Geneva Conventions. During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing [committee materials; JURIST report] on the future of military commissions [JURIST news archive], Gonzales called language in Common Article 3 prohibiting "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment" vague and said that the War Crimes Act [text], which makes it a felony to violate Common Article 3, should be revised to include more specific guidelines on what constitutes a war crime. In his prepared statement [text], Gonzales said:

For example, Common Article 3 prohibits 'outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment,' a phrase that is susceptible of uncertain and unpredictable application. If left undefined by statute, the application of Common Article 3 will create an unacceptable degree of uncertainty for those who fight to defend us from terrorist attack, particularly because any violation of Common Article 3 constitutes a federal crime under the War Crimes Act...

We believe that the standards governing the treatment of detainees by United States personnel in the War on Terror should be certain, and that those standards should be defined clearly by U.S. law, consistent with our international obligations.

[JURIST] US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg [Oyez profile] Wednesday ordered [PDF] the full disclosure of records from a lawsuit filed by four Connecticut librarians against the FBI [official website] challenging a National Security Letter (NSL) [text, PDF; ACLU backgrounder] they received last year. The four librarians refused to turn over the library records requested in the letter, which sought the identity of all the patrons that used a particular computer during a 45 minute time period last February, and protested the government's insistence that the librarians not disclose that they received the NSL. In June, the FBI dropped its investigation into the library records [JURIST report], saying that it had gleaned the necessary information through other means and the threat sent from the library computer in question no longer posed a national security threat. Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [advocacy website] asked the Supreme Court to release the records in the case because the investigation had concluded.

The ACLU last year filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] on behalf of the library, and in September US District Judge Janet Hall lifted the gag order [JURIST report] restricting the four librarians from disclosing that they had received a NSL, ruling that it unfairly prevented librarians from participating in debate about the proper revision of the USA Patriot Act [JURIST news archive] before the government renewed [JURIST report] the anti-terror legislation in March. Federal prosecutors abandoned appeal efforts [JURIST report] in April 2006. AP has more.

[JURIST] US District Judge Marcia Cooke [official profile] on Wednesday agreed to delay the trial of terror suspect Jose Padilla [JURIST news archive] and two co-defendants until January 22 after defense attorneys said they will not be ready to begin the trial in September as scheduled. Padilla's attorneys complained that they have not had enough time to review summaries of 50,000 intercepted phone calls that will be used as evidence, and have struggled to prepare a defense for Padilla due to the extreme security measures at Padilla's federal detention center.

Padilla, initially suspected of planning to set off a "dirty bomb" in the United States, was charged [JURIST report] last year with conspiracy to murder US nationals, conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and providing material support to terrorists. He was transferred to civilian custody [JURIST report] in January of this year, when he pleaded not guilty [JURIST report] to the terror charges. AP has more.

[JURIST] The US Senate Indian Affairs Committee [official website] on Wednesday postponed consideration [press release] of the Indian Trust Reform Act [HR 4322 summary], legislation that would settle a decade-old class-action lawsuit [Cobell v. Norton litigation website] brought by Native Americans alleging the mismanagment of American Indian money [DOI Indian Trust Fund website] by the US Department of the Interior [official website]. Committee chairman Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and vice chairman Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) [official websites] proposed the legislation last year and the committee was supposed to complete markup of the bill Wednesday. Instead, McCain postponed markup until after the summer recess. Dorgan met with Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Tuesday, and obtained promises from both secretaries to work with McCain and Dorgan through the recess "to produce legislation that all parties to the Cobell litigation can live with."

The plaintiffs filed the lawsuit ten years ago, accusing the government of mismanaging an Indian trust [advocacy website; JURIST news archive] in their names for a period of 120 years. Last month, plaintiffs in the lawsuit indicated they were considering settling for $8 billion [JURIST report], though no agreement has yet been reached. In a statement [text] Wednesday, lead plaintiff Elouise Cobell called the delay "unfortunate," saying "No one in Indian Country believes the Administration actually needs any more time to consider this resolution. Nor is there any reason to believe that the Administration is more serious now, given their record of resistance, irrespective of what they say. There is nothing new here in the Bush administration's attitude. The government has never negotiated in good faith, notwithstanding court orders or congressional directive." AP has more.

[JURIST] A California jury on Wednesday found Merck [corporate website] not liable for causing the heart attack [Merck press release] of 71-year old Stewart Grossberg, determining Merck's painkiller Vioxx [Merck Vioxx Information Center website; JURIST news archive] did not cause Grossberg's heart ailments. Merck general counsel Kenneth Frazier said Merck is "pleased with the verdict" and that it demonstrates why the company plans to defend each case independently. The California verdict comes in the eighth Vioxx trial to reach a verdict out of more than 16,000 pending lawsuits.

Merck has now won five Vioxx cases and lost three Vioxx cases, after a New Jersey jury found Merck not liable [JURIST report] for a woman's heart attack and that the company did not fail to warn the woman of the heart risks involved with the painkiller. In April, a New Jersey state court jury awarded $9 million [JURIST report] in punitive damages and $4.5 million in compensatory damages to the family of a 77-year-old heart attack victim. Another Texas jury found Merck liable last year for the death of a 59 year-old marathon runner who had taken the drug for eight months, awarding $253 million [JURIST report]; that award was reduced to $26 million under Texas punitive damages caps. A different Texas jury also awarded the family of a 71-year old man who died from a heart attack $32 million [JURIST report] - $7 million in compensatory damages and $25 million in punitive damages - in April. Merck pulled the drug from the market in September 2004 after a study showed that it could double the risk of heart attack or stroke if taken for more than 18 months. Merck has set aside $1 billion to fight every Vioxx court challenge. AP has more. The Los Angeles Times has local coverage.