[JURIST] The adoption of a media charter by the council of Arab information ministers is an attempt to take away what limited broadcast freedom private TV viewers enjoy, according to a statement [press release] text by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) [advocacy website] Saturday. Last week Arab governments adopted a satellite broadcasting charter which prohibits broadcasting material that undermines social peace, national unity, public order and general propriety, or that criticizes religions or defames political, national and religious leaders. If the policy is violated, the government can suspend or revoke the broadcaster's license. CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon called the policy "an unacceptable move on the part of autocratic governments to rob viewers of the already small amount of broadcast freedom they have enjoyed on private television."

The popular Arab network Al Jazeera [media website] also challenged the charter saying it would pose a threat to independent reporting. In a statement issued Friday, Al Jazeera Director-General Wadah Khanfar said that "any code of ethics or governance for journalistic practices should emerge, and be governed, from within the profession and not be imposed externally by political institutions." Reuters has more. Al Jazeera has additional coverage.

[JURIST] The Federal Court of Canada [official website] refused a request by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) [official website] for warrants allowing it to conduct overseas electronic surveillance on 10 individuals, including 9 Canadians or Canadian immigrants, in a ruling [summary, PDF] made public Friday. Mr. Justice Edmond Blanchard [official profile] denied the warrants, saying the court did not possess the jurisdiction to authorize CSIS to conduct investigations outside Canada under either CSIS's governing act or customary international law. A CSIS spokesperson quoted by the Toronto Globe & Mail said the warrants were for the specific purpose of conducting telecommunications intercepts, not searches or something similar. The spokesman also said the ruling was not binding on CSIS as other federal agencies had endorsed its international operations. CSIS has said it will not appeal.

The ruling is particularly important to CSIS because it has been arguing in recent years for greater control over spying operations overseas. Last year, Blanchard approved warrants [redacted judgment, part I; redacted judgment, part II] which allowed CSIS to search and eavesdrop on the 10 individuals while in Canada. But CSIS wanted to take the warrants further to clarify its position on international surveillance and to protect itself under Canadian law, where it might be accused of infringing the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, or even the Canadian Criminal Code. The Canadian Communications Security Establishment [official website] is authorized under Canadian law to monitor international communications but cannot eavesdrop on Canadians, either domestically or abroad. The Globe & Mail has more.

[JURIST] Former Khmer Rouge Commander Sam Bith died Friday at the age of 74 after suffering from a history of high blood pressure and diabetes. Bith was serving a life sentence after being convicted by a Cambodian court in 2002 of ordering the kidnapping and execution of three tourists stemming from an attack on a train in southwest Cambodia in 1994. The three men were held for three months before they were killed while the Cambodia government tried unsuccessfully to negotiate for their release. Bith was not charged by the UN-backed Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) [official website] as the court's jurisdiction is limited to crimes that occurred between April 1975 and January 1979, the period in which Cambodia was controlled by the Khmer Rouge. An exact cause of death was not released to the public.

The Khmer Rouge is generally held responsible for the genocide of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians [PPU backgrounder] who died between 1975 and 1979. The ECCC was established by a 2001 law [text as amended 2005, PDF] to investigate and try surviving Khmer Rouge officials, but to date, no top officials have faced trials. In December, Cambodian students and Buddhist monks took to the streets [JURIST report] over concerns that the trials are moving too slowly and that many former Khmer Rouge leaders in UN custody could die before trials are actually held. The ECCC has cited disputes with the Cambodian Bar Association [JURIST report] over membership fees for foreign attorneys, as well as procedural issues [JURIST report] and the language barrier for delays in moving to the trial stage. Five former Khmer Rouge leaders are currently in the ECCC's custody. AP has more.

[JURIST] Lawyers for Zacarias Moussaoui [JURIST news archive] said their client's guilty plea and life prison sentence should be overturned because his constitutional rights were violated, according to court papers released Friday. The 207-page brief filed in the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit [official website] asks that Moussaoui's guilty plea be revoked or that Moussaoui be re-sentenced, saying that Moussaoui faced an "unconstitutional choice" between entering a guilty plea or facing a "fundamentally unfair trial." The federal government's reply brief has not yet been filed.

Moussaoui pleaded guilty [JURIST report] in April 2005 to six conspiracy charges [indictment] in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks, including conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries, conspiracy to destroy aircraft and conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. He received a life sentence [JURIST report] last year after one juror refused to agree to the death penalty [JURIST report]. He is currently serving his life sentence in the federal Supermax prison in Colorado. The Washington Post has more.

[JURIST] Pakistani officials on Friday arrested a fifth suspect for his alleged involvement in the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto [BBC obituary; JURIST news archive]. Police described the suspect, Abdul Rasheed, as an important member of the conspiracy behind the December 27 attack. The arrest comes three days before parliamentary elections that were postponed after the assassination.

Five men have now been arrested for their alleged involvement with the assassination [JURIST report], part of a suicide attack at a political rally in Rawalpindi. Two were arrested in January [JURIST report], one of whom told investigators he was sent by Baitullah Meshud [BBC profile], a leader with strong ties to the Taliban and al Qaeda. On Wednesday, these two men admitted to supplying the suicide bomber, known as Bilal, with a bomb vest and a pistol. Two additional suspects were arrested last week [JURIST report] and were identified by the Pakistani government as "two very important alleged terrorists." BBC News has more.

[JURIST] A Zambian High Court Magistrate Friday ruled that former Zambian President Frederick Chiluba [BBC profile] must stand trial for allegedly stealing money from the country's treasury while in office from 1991-2001. Chiluba and two Zambian businessmen, Faustin Kabwe and Aaron Chungu, face a total of 12 counts of theft of public funds for their involvement in taking $488,000 when the treasury deposited payments to two US security firms into a London bank account controlled by the Zambia Security and Intelligence Services (ZSIS). Chungu, the former director-general of ZSIS, and Kabwe are accused of helping Chiluba use the money to purchase property and provide payments to his children. Chiluba maintains that some of the money was given to him by friends, while the rest was intended as payment for national intelligence duties. If convicted, Chiluba faces a minimum sentence of five years in prison. The trial is scheduled to start May 5.

In July, Chiluba was ordered by a London court to pay $58 million in fines [JURIST report] to Zambia to compensate for other funds stolen during Chiluba's decade in power. The suit was brought in Britain [BBC report] by Zambian officials because Chiluba and his associates held the assets in the UK and other European countries. Reuters has more. The Zambia Daily Mail has local coverage.