[JURIST] Six French aid workers were sentenced to eight years of hard labor Wednesday after being convicted in a Chadian court for attempting to kidnap 103 African children [JURIST report]. The six, affiliated with the Zoe's Ark [advocacy website] charity, claimed that they were attempting to airlift orphaned children [JURIST news archive] from the war-torn Sudanese region of Darfur to safety in Europe, but investigations revealed that most of the children were not actually orphans. The case has sparked protests across Chad, and complicated international aid efforts in the region. Chad and France have a bilateral agreement which could allow for the six convicted workers to be transferred to France to serve sentences there. The French Foreign Ministry has said it will ask the Chadian authorities to transfer the workers.

Last month, Chad released three Spanish air crew and a Belgian pilot [JURIST report] held in Chad in connection with the attempted airlift. Chadian authorities also freed seven Europeans [JURIST report] in early November, including three French journalists, after French President Nicolas Sarkozy [official website] personally intervened on their behalf. Three Chadians and one Sudanese national are also facing trial in Chad for complicity in kidnapping and fraud. AP has more.

[JURIST] Serbian War Crimes Prosecutor Vladmir Vukcevic said Wednesday that fugitive Bosnian Serb leader Ratko Mladic [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] is in Serbia, and that authorities are closing in on him. Vukevic's comments are the first acknowledgement by a Serbian official that Mladic is hiding in the country, although that has been widely suspected. Vukcevic said that Serbian authorities have isolated Mladic in a large area and are working to locate him more precisely, arrest him and transfer him to The Hague for trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia [official website].

Jasna Sarcevic Jankovic, the Public Information Coordinator for the Serbian War Crimes Prosecutor's Office [official website], told JURIST's Hotline earlier this month that:

The location, arresting and transfer of Ratko Mladic and the other three indictees to The Hague is not only our international obligation, but also our moral duty. The fact is that Serbia has so far fulfilled most of its obligations towards the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, including the extradition of its two former presidents. All of them have been charged with the gravest criminal offences recognised by the international humanitarian law. The extradition of the remaining indictees would be a proof that the Serbian people do not want to carry this burden on into the future.

Substantial capacities of the Serbian War Crimes Prosecutor's Office have been focused on the solution to this problem. What motivates us to proceed with our efforts is the acknowledgement that the Serbian state institutions have done their best in order to have The Hague fugitives brought to justice.

[JURIST] The Russian Supreme Court [official website; in Russian] has overruled a lower court decision [JURIST report] that had held that a new investigation into the activities of Yukos [JURIST news archive] founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky [defense website; JURIST news archive] and his partner Platon Lebedev [defense website] was illegal. The Supreme Court decision permits Russian prosecutors to press ahead with charges of embezzlement, expropriation and money laundering. Khodorkovsky's lawyers say they will appeal the ruling to the European Court of Human Rights [official website].

Khodorkovsky was convicted of fraud and tax evasion in 2005 and is currently serving an eight-year prison sentence at a penal colony in Chita, eastern Siberia. RIA Novosti has more.

[JURIST] Former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina [party profile] went on trial on one of two alleged extortion charges [Reuters report] in a Dhaka courtroom Wednesday, according to a court official cited by Reuters. Sheikh Selim, a former Minister of Government, also appeared on similar charges. Hasina is accused of extorting around $1.16 million from two businessmen. In October, she denied the accusations [JURIST report] during questioning by officials. If convicted, she would be banned from running for office for 10 years.

The current interim government in Bangladesh has arrested over 150 high-profile citizens since the military-backed government declared a state of emergency [JURIST report; advocacy backgrounder] in January due to concerns that fraud would mar national elections scheduled for January 22. Hasina's rival, former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia [profile], has also been charged with corruption [JURIST report]. Hasina was prime minister between 1996 and 2001 and is the the leader of the opposition Awami League [party website]. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] The Iraqi cabinet passed a draft law on Wednesday that would grant a general pardon to "innocent" detainees held in Iraqi and US prisons in the country, according to an Iraqi official speaking to AFP Wednesday. Currently, there are more than 26,000 detainees held in US-run Camp Cropper and Camp Bucca and some 24,000 more held in facilities run by the Iraqi defense, interior and justice ministries. Most of the detainees are Sunni Arabs [IHT report] who have been held for more than a year on suspicion of supporting the insurgency. Iraqi officials have expressed hope that mass releases will help ease tensions between Shiite and Sunni communities. The draft law now goes to the Iraqi parliament [JURIST news archive] for its approval.

Earlier this year, the country's largest Sunni parliamentary bloc, the Iraqi Accordance Front [BBC backgrounder], boycotted major government meetings in response to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's failure to respond to demands [JURIST report] that included pardons for uncharged security detainees. In October, Iraqi Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi urged fellow Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi and President Jalal Talabani to press the Iraqi parliament to pardon detainees [JURIST report] not classified as "dangerous elements" linked to the insurgency. AFP has more.