[JURIST] Former Ugandan health minister Jim Muhwezi [New Vision profile] went to trial Monday on charges of embezzlement and abuse of office. Muhwezi is alleged to have misused $4.3 million in grants donated to the government of Uganda by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and the Immunization (GAVI) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria [advocacy websites] to help develop vaccines and immunizations for AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. In 2005, The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria froze an additional $150 million in grants [BBC report] after investigators noticed discrepancies when converting the money from US dollars to Ugandan shillings. Muhwezi has denied [BBC report] all charges.

Four other former senior government officials, including three of Muhwezi's deputies, have also been implicated in the scam. Muhwezi and his deputies were charged and released on bail [BBC report] in May. Muhwezi had acted as the minister for primary education until 1999, when suspicions arose surrounding his personal finances. He became minister of health in 2001 but was dropped from the cabinet after investigations began into the vaccine and immunization scandal. BBC News has more.

[JURIST] Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum [advocacy website] admitted during a preliminary hearing Monday to killing Iraqis at Haditha [USMC timeline; JURIST news archive] in November 2005 but said he was acting pursuant to proper military protocol. Tatum is charged [news release] with unpremeditated murder, negligent homicide, and assault related to the deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians [JURIST report]. He asserts that his training directed him to respond to any potential threat with deadly force, but the prosecution says that Tatum and his unit were issued rules-of-engagement cards instructing them to only use deadly force after a target had been identified as having hostile intent. Lt. Gen. James Mattis [official profile], who is overseeing the Haditha killings probe, will determine whether Tatum should face court-martial. If convicted, Tatum faces life in prison.

Monday's Article 32 hearing [JAG backgrounder] took place as a part of the largest US military prosecution involving civilian deaths in Iraq. Four officers have been charged with dereliction of duty offenses and an additional three Marines have been charged with unpremeditated murder. US Marine Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich [advocacy website], commander of the platoon implicated in the deaths, told his lawyer last year [JURIST report] that his unit followed the rules of engagement and did not purposefully attack civilians. Iraqi witnesses say that the Marines led by Wuterich shot into the homes of civilians after a fellow Marine was killed by a roadside bomb. AP has more.

[JURIST] Judge Haley Fromholz of the Los Angeles Superior Court Monday approved a $660 million settlement [press release; JURIST report] between the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles [diocesan website] and plaintiffs in 508 outstanding clergy sex abuse lawsuits [JURIST news archive]. Fromholz called the settlement "the right result" and applauded those who had worked to negotiate the deal over the past five years.

Monday's approval brings the total settlements of all Catholic clergy abuse claims to more than $2 billion. Before Monday's agreement, the largest settlement previously paid was $85 million by the Boston Archdiocese in 2002. AP has more. The Los Angeles Times has local coverage.

[JURIST] Washington, DC Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and Attorney General Linda Singer [official profiles] announced Monday that the city will appeal a ruling invalidating the District of Columbia's handgun ban [JURIST report] to the US Supreme Court. The city has until August 7th to file an appeal with the high court and will be able to maintain the handgun ban pending appeal. City lawyers have warned that the ruling "severely limits" the ability of local and federal legislatures to regulate firearms to protect citizens and law-enforcement officers.

The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit [official website] in May denied a request [JURIST report] by the city for an en banc rehearing of the court's March decision [PDF text]. A Republican bid to overturn the DC gun ban legislatively passed the US House of Representatives [WP report] in 2004, but failed to get Senate approval. AP has more.

[JURIST] Lawyers and human rights advocates called for more rigid procedures governing the investigation of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines at a Monday conference [press release] organized by the Supreme Court of the Philippines [official website]. Edelina dela Paz, chairwoman of human rights group Karapatan [advocacy website], called for a stronger witness protection program, pointing to the murder of a witness who was killed after testifying in front of UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions [official website] Philip Alston. In his February report, Alston found that many of the killings were committed by the Philippine military [JURIST report], which he said was in "a state of denial" about the "significant number of killings" taking place.

Pacifico Agabin, dean of the Lyceum of the Philippines University College of Law, said the court should strip Philippine President Gloria Arroyo [official website; BBC profile] of her immunity from prosecution. As president, Arroyo is commander in chief of the military. Arroyo pledged to fully investigate the killings [JURIST report] following the release of the UN report, but rights groups say she has not fulfilled her promise. AP has more.

[JURIST] US District Judge Lewis Kaplan Monday dismissed charges [opinion, PDF] against 13 of 16 defendants in an ongoing criminal tax shelters case [JURIST report] against former employees of the accounting firm KPMG [corporate website], ruling that federal prosecutors violated the constitutional rights of the defendants [JURIST report] by pressuring KPMG not to pay for the defendants' legal fees. Kaplan wrote that the case against the remaining three defendants, as well as two other defendants who were not KPMG employees, will proceed. Their trial is slated for September. Prosecutors may reinstate charges against all 13 defendants if Kaplan's first ruling is overturned on appeal.

The constitutional violations stem from the Department of Justice's 2003 "Thompson Memorandum" [PDF text], which deemed that a "the advancing of attorneys fees" to "culpable employees and agents" could be considered a factor in favor of prosecuting a corporation. KPMG initially negotiated with the defendants and paid the legal fees of some defendants, but ceased payments due to pressure from government prosecutors. The defendants are accused of setting up tax shelters that cost the US government an estimated $2.5 billion in revenues. KPMG has admitted the tax shelters were illegal and has taken full responsibility for the unlawful conduct [JURIST report]. In August 2005, KPMG agreed to pay the IRS a $456 million fine [JURIST report] to avoid criminal prosecution. The DOJ revised the Thompson Memorandum [JURIST report] late last year. Bloomberg has more.

[JURIST] A bipartisan group of 44 former US state attorneys general have asked the US House and Senate Judiciary Committees to investigate whether the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman (D) [official profile; JURIST news archive], was politically motivated, according to Monday reports. Last month, Alabama attorney Jill Simpson, who had worked on the campaign of Siegelman's opponent, current Alabama Governor Bob Riley (R) [official website], signed a sworn affidavit and offered to testify that senior campaign workers discussed White House involvement in Seigelman's prosecution. She alleged that Republican operative Bill Canary said White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove [official profile] had assured Canary that Siegelman was being pursued by the Department of Justice.

Siegelman was convicted [DOJ press release] in June 2006 on federal charges of bribery and fraud [JURIST report]. He was sentenced [JURIST report] last month to over seven years in prison. AP has more.

[JURIST] Pakistani government lawyer Sharifuddin Pirzada informed the Supreme Court of Pakistan [official website] Monday that prosecutors are dismissing a single charge of judicial misconduct against suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry [official website; JURIST news archive]. Pirzada said that President Pervez Musharraf made the decision, but did not specify the reasons behind it. Other unspecified charges of misconduct [JURIST report] are still being pursued against Chaudhry. The high court is expected to rule on the remaining charges later this week.

In early July, the high court tossed out key evidence [JURIST report] introduced by government prosecutors against Chaudhry because the materials, which contained photographs taken inside Chaudhry's home, corroborated allegations by Chaudhry that the government was spying on senior judges. The court rebuked government prosecutors and ordered Pakistan's intelligence service to sweep the high court and the justices' residences for surveillance devices. The government says Chaudhry misused his influence [JURIST report] to obtain jobs and promotions for his son. Officials have already indicated other charges may follow [JURIST report]. Many Pakistani lawyers and opposition leaders believe Chaudhry's suspension was an indirect bid by Musharraf to continue his eight-year rule in an election year. Reuters has more.

ALSO ON JURIST  Topic: Pakistan | Op-ed: Pakistan Needs a Bold Decision on Chaudhry | Op-ed: A Lawyers' Mutiny in Pakistan

[JURIST] A spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert [official profile] Monday confirmed the impending Israeli release of 250 Palestinian prisoners belonging to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Movement [BBC backgrounder] and other minor factions. The release, approved by the Israeli cabinet [JURIST report] last Sunday and expected to take place Friday, is an effort to strengthen the moderate Fatah against the more-hardline Hamas [BBC backgrounder], which violently took over the Gaza Strip [BBC backgrounder] in June.

Palestinian infighting between the Islamist-Hamas and the secular-Fatah has established two parallel Palestinian governments in the West Bank and Gaza. Hamas, which was elected as the ruling party [JURIST report] of the Palestinian Authority in early 2006, has refused to distance itself from terrorism or recognize Israel's right to exist as a nation-state. As a result, it has been increasingly ostracized by the United States, the European Union, and Israel. AP has more.

[JURIST] An Ethiopian court sentenced 35 opposition members to life in prison Monday for their roles in mass anti-government demonstrations [JURIST reports]. The opposition members, five of whom were sentenced in absentia were convicted last month of treason and inciting violence. Prosecutors had sought the death penalty [JURIST report]. The court also sentenced six opposition members to sentences ranging from 15 to 18 years, and gave two journalists terms ranging from one to three years in prison. Relatives of the 38 opposition leaders who were in court said Monday that the defendants could be freed in the near future as they have signed a document of apology. The opposition members, most of whom belonged to the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) [party website], offered no defense throughout the trial and have maintained that the charges were politically motivated.

The defendants, who were previously barred from meeting with their defense lawyers [JURIST report], were convicted for inciting the anti-government protests following Ethiopia's contested 2005 elections [JURIST news archive], which were marred by allegations of fraud [JURIST report]. Last October, an Ethiopian inquiry team charged with investigating the demonstrations said that approximately 193 civilians were killed by Ethiopian security forces [JURIST report] during the violence, an estimate nearly three times the official number initially reported by the government. BBC News has more.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit [official website] ruled Monday that spouses and unmarried partners of women who face inhumane treatment under rigid Chinese population control measures do not automatically qualify for asylum [opinion, PDF] in the United States. The court said section 601(a) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 [text] explicitly protects those who are forced to "abort a pregnancy or to undergo involuntary sterilization, or who has been persecuted for failure or refusal to undergo such a procedure or for other resistance to a coercive population control program," but is unambiguous in not extending automatic refugee protection beyond that. The court acknowledged that by deciding the Board of Immigration Appeals [official website] incorrectly interpreted the statue, they were conflicting with decisions in a number of other circuits.

Last month the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] ruled that the refugee statute applied broadly [opinion, PDF; JURIST report], and that an abortion forced on a woman by her employer was the same as one forced by the state under China's "One Child Policy" [backgrounder]. The Ninth Circuit also held that a "partner of a woman who had a forced abortion" is entitled to asylum. AP has more.

[JURIST] Six opposition members and former constitutional delegates have criticized the efforts of the military government of Myanmar to reconvene negotiations on a new constitution [JURIST news archive]. The six accused the military junta Sunday of handpicking most of the delegates to the country's National Convention to ensure it remains in power. Khun Myint Tun, a National League for Democracy (NLD) [Wikipedia backgrounder] member and former delegate who fled to Thailand to boycott the convention, says that only 12 delegates were democratically elected members of parliament. Another delegate said he was forced to participate by the military regime to "represent" farmers despite being a teacher with no knowledge of farming or the law.

The latest constitutional convention, slated to resume on July 18 [JURIST report], comes amid international criticism [JURIST report] of Myanmar's political situation and the continued house arrest [JURIST report] of NLD opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi [advocacy website; BBC profile]. Myanmar [JURIST news archive] has been governed without a constitution since the military regime took power in 1988. AP has more.

[JURIST] Antun Gudelj, a Croatian man convicted in 1994 of murdering three police officials who were trying to negotiate with Serb rebels opposed to Croatian independence in 1991, was extradited from Australia to Croatia on Sunday. Gudelj, who maintains he acted alone despite popular suspicion that he acted in concert with Croatian nationalist and former President Franjo Tudejman [BBC profile], was pardoned in 1997 by a general amnesty but faces new proceedings after the Croatian Constitutional Court [official website] ordered a new trial in 2001. The killing preceded and contributed to the start of the 1991-1995 Croatian War of Independence [Wikipedia backgrounder].

Croatian trials of war crimes suspects are part of the country's bid to become a member of the European Union [EU materials]. In March 2005, the EU suspended entry talks [JURIST report] on the grounds that Croatia was failing to fully cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia [official website]. The entry talks were resumed later in October 2005 after the ICTY declared that Croatia was fully cooperating with the ICTY [JURIST report]. AP has more. AAP has local coverage.

[JURIST] The US Defense Department announced Monday that 16 detainees have been transferred to Saudi Arabia [press release] from Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] Monday, bringing the total of repatriated Saudi detainees up to 77. The 16 will remain in custody pending Saudi investigations into whether they were linked to prohibited militant organizations. Saudi Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki told the Saudi Press Agency [media website] that another 53 Saudi Arabian nationals remain detained at Guantanamo Bay.

Last June, Saudi Interior Ministry officials urged the release and transfer of all Saudi prisoners [JURIST report] from the military detention facility after the suicide death of two Saudi nationals [JURIST report]. In June 2007, a third Saudi detainee died in an apparent suicide [JURIST report]. The US military says that with the latest transfer of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, approximately 360 detainees are still in custody. Approximately 80 of those detainees have been deemed eligible for release or transfer. Last Friday, a group of six Democratic senators urged Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to take more steps to ensure detainees transferred out of Guantanamo Bay will not be subjected to torture [JURIST report]. AP has more.

[JURIST] A federal judge has given preliminary approval to a $3.2 billion settlement agreement [JURIST report] between Tyco International [corporate website; JURIST news archive], Tyco's former auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers [corporate website], and investors who were harmed by fraudulent accounting practices orchestrated by Tyco's former top executives. Judge Paul Barbadoro, however, said Friday that he will scrutinize the allocation of the settlement funds based on "simple fairness." The settlement requires Tyco to establish a $2.975 billion cash fund to pay investor losses and also to give plaintiffs half of any recoveries made in Tyco's lawsuits against former CEO Dennis Kozlowski, former CFO Mark Swartz [JURIST news archive], and former board member Frank Walsh. It also includes a $225 million contribution from PricewaterhouseCoopers because the auditor failed discover the fraudulent accounting that inflated the companies' earnings.

The shareholders' class action lawsuit against Tyco was certified [order, PDF] last June. In 2005, Kozlowski and Swartz were found guilty [JURIST report] of looting the company and defrauding its shareholders out of more than $150 million in unauthorized personal compensation, and were sentenced [JURIST report] to prison for 8 to 25 years. Bloomberg has more.

[JURIST] Bangladeshi authorities arrested former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed [Wikipedia profile] following a raid on her home Monday, accusing Hasina of extorting approximately $1.16 million from two businessmen. Hasina is also accused of involvement in the political assassination [JURIST report] of four rivals during her tenure in office from 1996 to 2001. Hasina has denied the allegations, and supporters protested her arrest in the capital city of Dhaka and in other regions across Bangladesh.

In June, Hasina, the leader of the opposition Awami League [party website], criticized the arrest [JURIST report] of Awami secretary general Abdul Jalil as an "autocratic move" motivated by politics rather than any legitimate attempt to stamp out corruption. The Bangladeshi interim emergency government [JURIST report], which came to power in January with the backing of the military, has used its anti-corruption campaign [BBC Q&A; JURIST news archive] to justify the declaration of a state of emergency [JURIST report] allowing detention without warrants or specific charges. The emergency government has also filed corruption charges against Hasina's rival, former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia [UN profile] and last Thursday jailed a UN human rights expert who had been prevented from traveling to Geneva to deliver a report on human trafficking. BBC News has more.

[JURIST] Peruvian Extradition Unit Chief Omar Chehade on Sunday criticized a Chilean court ruling [JURIST report] denying a Peruvian request for the extradition of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori [personal website; JURIST news archive], characterizing it as slanted and partial decision. Chehade also indicated that Peruvian officials may travel to Chile to discuss Peru's appeal [JURIST report] of the extradition denial with judges on the Chilean Supreme Court [official website, in Spanish].

The Chilean high court is expected to take at least three months to rule on last week's verdict, in which Judge Orlando Alvarez rejected the extradition bid on the grounds that the Peruvian government failed to prove Fujimori's involvement in human rights abuses and corruption schemes. Fujimori served as president of Peru from 1990 to 2000 and is currently under house arrest [JURIST report] in Chile. He was arrested in Chile [JURIST report] in December 2005 after flying into that country from Japan to campaign for the Peruvian presidency, despite having been officially banned from holding public office until 2010 [JURIST report]. He is currently running for a seat in the Japanese parliament [JURIST reports]. Xinhua has more.