[JURIST] International police organization Interpol [official website] Thursday agreed to issue [press release] arrest notices [Interpol backgrounder] for six men thought to be connected with the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires [Wikipedia backgrounder; AMIA website] that killed 85 people. Argentina [JURIST news archive] had initially sought to have a number of high ranking Iranian officials, including former Iran President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani [JURIST report; BBC profile; official website, in Farsi] arrested, but Interpol's Executive Committee [official website] approved notices for only five Iranians, including one for former Intelligence Chief Ali Fallahian [Wikipedia profile], and an additional notice for a Lebanese militant. Notices were denied for Rafsanjani, as well as Iran's former Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Akbar Velayati and the former Ambassador of Iran in Buenos Aires, Hadi Soleimanpour.

Iran's top diplomat in Argentina told the AP of his country's intention to appeal the decision, which would postpone the planned issuance date of March 31 until Interpol's General Assembly [official website] meets in Morocco at the beginning of November. AP has more.

[JURIST] Legislators in Mexico City [official website] have begun deliberations on a bill that would legalize abortions [JURIST news archive] during the first trimester of pregnancy. The bill, proposed by the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) [official website, in Spanish], would loosen Mexico's strict abortion laws within the boundary of the capital city. Abortion is generally illegal throughout the heavily Roman Catholic country, with exceptions only for cases of rape. Mexico City previously loosened the country's restriction to allow abortions when the health of the mother was in danger. Conservatives in the country, including Mexican President Felipe Calderon [official website] and his National Action Party (PAN) [official website] are heavily opposed to any change of abortion law, and have vowed to fight the bill in court. The PRD holds a majority (34 out of 66) of Mexico City's legislative seats, as well as the mayor's office.

Supporters of the bill say that the current laws endanger poor women who, unlike wealthier Mexicans, cannot afford to travel to the United States for the surgery and so must resort to unsafe back-alley abortions. Last year Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] conducted an extensive study of abortion availability for rape victims in Mexico [study text; press release], finding that rape victims seeking legal abortions often are intimidated with insults and threats of legal retaliation by both prosecutors and health workers. AP has more. Reuters has additional coverage.

[JURIST] Spain's Chamber of Deputies [official website, in Spanish], the lower house of the Spanish Parliament, approved a gender equality bill Thursday designed to draw more women into politics and corporate life. The bill had previously been approved by Spain's Senate [official website, in Spanish]. The initiative spearheaded by the majority Socialist Party [official website, in Spanish] passed the 350-seat body by a 190-0 margin with 119 abstentions and 39 members not in attendance. The minority conservative Popular Party [official website] abstained, believing the bill to be too interventionist. The bill also specifies that 40 percent of candidates filed on party ballots must be female, and also creates a new initiative that encourages corporations to hire more females by giving companies with higher ratios female to male employees preferential treatment when bidding for government contracts. At the same time, the bill also gives Spanish men some rights traditionally reserved for women; it will grant men paternity leave of 15 days that will expand to a month in 2013.

Unemployment levels for Spanish women are double that of men, and only 2 percent of corporate boards include female members. In contrast, US boards are approximately 15 percent women. AP has more.

[JURIST] White House advisor Karl Rove [official profile] originally suggested firing all 93 US Attorneys [JURIST report] in January 2005, according to an email conversation [text] released by the US Department of Justice Thursday. The e-mails appear to contradict the White House's assertion Tuesday that the idea to comprehensively dismiss US Attorneys first came from former White House counsel Harriet Miers [official profile]. In an email from Kyle Sampson [official press releases] at the Justice Department to US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales [official profile], former-deputy White House Counsel David Leitch and Colin Newman of the White House Counsel's Office, Sampson said that Rove had asked whether the administration planned to fire all US attorneys. Sampson said that the White House Counsel's Office planned to fire "underperforming" attorneys, further stating that the majority of US Attorneys are "are doing a great job, are loyal Bushies." The emails also reveal that Gonzales discussed the firings several weeks before he was confirmed as attorney general. ABC news has more.

Comprehensive dismissals of top federal prosecutors are not unprecedented; Clinton administration Attorney General Janet Reno fired all 93 US Attorneys at the beginning of President Clinton's first term.

[JURIST] The German Federal Court of Justice [official website] on Thursday ruled Nazi symbols could be used to protest extremism, overturning an October decision by a state court in Stuttgart [Deutsche Welle report]. The lower court had ordered Juergen Kamm, who began an internet company called Nix Gut [company website], to pay a fine of 3,600 euros (US $4,600) for selling T-shirts and badges featuring a swastika surrounded by a red circle and slash. Judge Walter Winkler, presiding at Thursday's decision, rejected the lower court's assertion that allowing swastikas as a "fashion article" risks making them "socially acceptable" again. He did say that for any symbol to be allowed, the anti-Nazi meaning had to be immediately apparent.

After the October decision, Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries [official profile, English version] had said that Germany should consider amending its penal code [JURIST report] to allow for the use of swastikas in anti-Nazi materials. A provision of the federal penal code [text] prohibits the "use of symbols of unconstitutional organizations," including those of the "former National Socialist organization," and prescribes punishment of up to three years' imprisonment or a fine. The code was enacted after World War II and makes exceptions for those using the symbols for educational or scientific purposes. AP has more.

[JURIST] French President Jacques Chirac [official profile; BBC profile] will be questioned by a judge this summer regarding his involvement in rigging public works contracts to finance political parties when he was mayor of Paris in the late 1980s and early '90s, according to justice officials Thursday. It is alleged that from 1988 to 1997, companies kicked back money spent by the regional Ile-de-France Council [official website, in French] for secondary school construction, to political parties including Chirac's Rally for the Republic (RPR) [Wikipedia backgrounder], the Republican Party (PR) [Wikipedia backgrounder] and the Socialists (PS) [official website]. Chirac, who steps down as president in May, enjoys presidential immunity until one month after his term ends. The news comes four days after Chirac announced he would not be running for a third term [AP report].

Last July, associates of Chirac were convicted of corruption [JURIST report] in the same kickback scheme. At the time, Chirac refused to appear before the court but denied allegations that he knew about the kickbacks. Chirac stands to face questioning on other alleged corruption schemes during his time as mayor. In September, fifteen of his allies went on trial for allegedly rigging a Paris election [JURIST report] during Chirac's tenure as mayor. Investigators also believe he used public funding to pay for personal vacations during his mayoral term. AFP has more.

[JURIST] The appeals chamber of the Iraqi High Tribunal (IHT) [official website] on Thursday upheld the death penalty for former Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan [Trial Watch profile; JURIST news archive], rejecting his appeal [DOC text; JURIST report] of the sentence handed down in the Saddam Hussein Dujail crimes against humanity trial. Ramadan was convicted [JURIST report; BBC verdict summary] by the IHT alongside Saddam Hussein in November and originally sentenced to life in prison. The IHT Appeals Chamber later deemed the sentence too lenient and ordered the death penalty for Ramadan. IHT Judge Mounir Haddad said Thursday that a nine-judge panel had decided unanimously to uphold Ramadan's death sentence. The Iraqi government must now set a date for Ramadan's hanging. AP has more.

Ramadan defense lawyer Giovanni Di Stefano has sent a letter [DOC text] to Gen. David Petraeus [official profile], commanding general of the Multi-National Force - Iraq, urging Petraeus to intervene and prevent Ramadan's transfer from US to Iraqi custody. Di Stefano called on Petraeus to transfer Ramadan to a US prison rather than turn him over to Iraqi forces. Di Stefano argued that the US military can apply "natural justice" under principles of the Geneva Conventions [ICRC materials]:

However, where the Courts may lack legal jurisdiction the obligation of any MNTF is to ensure that natural justice prevails. If any officer, commander, military accepts an order knowing reasonable that such order may violate (a) domestic law (b) international law and (c) natural justice then the same may be held liable and answer to the Courts. It is our belief however, that the current known legislation permits you as Commander of the MNTF in Iraq to refuse the handing over to the Iraqi Government our client for execution under the specific circumstance namely:

(a) Our client was originally sentenced to life imprisonment, (b) The Appeal Court deemed the said sentence lenient and referred the matter back to the Trial Court, (c) The Trial Court consisting of a differently composed Court substituted life imprisonment to that of sentence of death, (d) The Appeal Court within 36 hours of receiving our 28 page appeal and with hearing oral argument dismissed our appeal announcing such not by handed down a reasoned judgement but by press conference.

In our view any one single event as above would be sufficient for the MNTF to intervene and refuse to hand over our client for execution whilst and it follows that the summation of all compounded together must lead you, as the Commander of the said Force, into the invocation of the principles of the Geneva Convention.

[JURIST] The Supreme Court of Canada [official website] on Thursday upheld [judgment text] an election law prohibiting media outlets from broadcasting final election results in areas where the polls have not yet closed, finding the law a reasonable limit on freedom of expression as it ensures "informational equality among voters."

Section 329 of the Canada Elections Act [text], enacted in 1934, reads:

No person shall transmit the result or purported result of the vote in an electoral district to the public in another electoral district before the close of all of the polling stations in that other electoral district.

[JURIST] The Supreme Court of Israel [official website] should re-organize as an independent body, severing financial and administrative ties with the Israeli Justice Ministry [official website], Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch [official profile] said in a press conference Wednesday. Beinisch suggested that the Justice Department's influence over the Supreme Court threatens the judicial independence of the Court.

Last November, Beinisch suggested [Haaretz report] the Israeli Supreme Court should reduce the number of cases it hears, similar to the US Supreme Court. In February of this year, Israeli Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann proposed restricting the ability of the Court to overturn laws [JURIST report] passed by the Israeli parliament. Haaretz has more.

[JURIST] The US Senate Judiciary Committee [official website] agreed by voice-vote Thursday to issue subpoenas compelling five current and former DOJ aides and six fired US Attorneys to testify before the committee on whether their firings were politically motivated [JURIST report]. Along with six of the eight Attorneys who were fired under questionable circumstances last year, the Committee also authorized subpoenas for:

[JURIST] The Berkeley, California city council [official website] voted Tuesday to support the criminal complaint [introduction in English, PDF; full complaint text in German, part one and part two, PDF] filed in Germany against former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top US officials and advisers [CCR list] for authorizing the commission of war crimes in the US "war on terror." The council's Peace and Justice Commission originally submitted a proposal [text, PDF] to join the complaint as co-plaintiffs, but members of the traditionally-liberal council voted only to endorse the complaint, the first time any US local jurisdiction has taken such a stand on the controversial case.

The council resolution [CCR press release] reads:

[T]he Council of the City of Berkeley endorses the case of Rumsfeld et al. . . .

[T]he Council of the City of Berkeley supports all efforts throughout the world to hold Donald Rumsfeld and other United States officials who have prosecuted the War on Terror in violation of any applicable law to be held both civilly and criminally accountable for their actions before any tribunal with jurisdiction over the matter, whether such legal proceedings are pursued in this country or abroad.

[JURIST] A court in Rome convicted five former officers of the Argentina military Wednesday on charges of torturing, kidnapping and murdering three Italian citizens during Argentina's 1976-83 "Dirty War" [GlobalSecurity backgrounder; JURIST news archive]. All five defendants, who were tried in absentia, received life sentences. Argentinean officials have yet to confirm whether they will release the convicted men to Italian authorities. Four of the former officers, Jorge Eduardo Acosta, Alfredo Ignacio Astiz, Hector Antonio Febres and Antonio Vanek, are being held in Argentina on federal charges for various "Dirty War" crimes, while the fifth defendant, Jorge Raul Vildoza, is at large. Several human rights groups applauded the decision, including the Asociacion Madres de Plaza de Mayo [advocacy website, in Spanish].

The decision marks the second guilty verdict [Guardian report] handed down to alleged "Dirty War" criminals by the Italian courts, which have authority to prosecute defendants in absentia for political crimes perpetrated by foreign nationals. AP has more.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled [PDF opinion] Wednesday that a Virginia federal court judge lacked the necessary power to order the federal government to turn over grand jury transcripts of the Zacarias Moussaoui [JURIST news archive] criminal trial for use in a civil suit brought by families of 9/11 victims against the airline industry. The civil plaintiffs, who sued the airlines in federal court in New York, requested [motion 1, PDF; motion 2, PDF] the transcripts from District Judge Leonie Brinkema, who presided over Moussaoui's criminal trial. Brinkema then ordered [PDF text] the federal government to transfer the tapes over to the civil plaintiffs.

In finding that only the New York federal court could order discovery in the case, the Fourth Circuit wrote:

We, like the district court, have great sympathy for the victims of September 11 and their families. They have endured the most abhorrent of acts. But regardless of how much respect and compassion this court has, we must ensure that the federal courts in our jurisdiction - no matter how well intentioned - do not exceed their legal power...

Congress has confined the Civil Plaintiffs' action to the Southern District of New York. If they need access to Moussaoui's grand jury transcripts, they are of course free to return to the Eastern District of Virginia and make a request under Rule 6(e) to transfer those transcripts to the Southern District of New York. Nevertheless, the general discovery process must be controlled by the very capable judges of the Southern District of New York, the only court with jurisdiction over the Civil Plaintiffs' causes of action.

[JURIST] Google Inc. announced a new user privacy policy [press release] on Wednesday where, "unless [Google] is legally required to retain log data for longer," Google will anonymize search information, such as the query entered, IP addresses, and cookie details, after 18 to 24 months. Google further said:

By anonymizing our server logs after 18-24 months, we think we're striking the right balance between two goals: continuing to improve Google's services for you, while providing more transparency and certainty about our retention practices. In the future, it's possible that data retention laws will obligate us to retain logs for longer periods.

[JURIST] Chiquita Brands International, Inc. [corporate website] has reached a plea agreement with the US Justice Department to settle claims that Chiquita paid approximately $1.7 million to a Colombian terrorist group between 1997 and 2004 to protect banana harvesting operations in Colombia, according to a criminal information filed by the DOJ in federal court Wednesday. Chiquita itself released an SEC filing [PDF text] Wednesday, which states, in part:

On March 14, 2007, Chiquita Brands International, Inc. ("the Company") entered into a plea agreement with the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Colombia and the National Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (together, the "government") relating to the previously disclosed investigation by the government into payments made by the Company's former banana-producing subsidiary in Colombia to certain groups designated under U.S. law as foreign terrorist organizations. Chiquita voluntarily disclosed the payments to the government in April 2003. Under the terms of the agreement, the Company will plead guilty to one count of Engaging in Transactions with a Specially-Designated Global Terrorist, and will pay a fine of $25 million, payable in five equal annual installments, with interest. The Company also will continue to cooperate with the government in any continuing investigation into the matter. As previously disclosed, the Company had recorded a reserve in 2006 of the full $25 million fine amount in anticipation of reaching a settlement with the government.

The agreement is subject to approval and acceptance by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.