[JURIST] A panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Friday overturned [opinion, PDF] a lower court ruling dismissing an antitrust class action lawsuit against a group of banks that require credit cardholders to use arbitration to settle disputes. The cardholders argue that the banks, which include Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup [corporate websites], violated federal antitrust law by colluding to force cardholders to use arbitration instead of the courts.

In 2006, the US District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed the antitrust suit for lack of standing under Article III of the United States Constitution. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) [official website; JURIST news archive] was cleared of financial mismanagement in an independent audit [PDF text; summary, PDF] released Friday. The review was ordered by the ECCC Project Board in hopes that it would quell concerns raised by some foreign donors after the court made a formal request for an additional $114 million [JURIST report] last month that would increase the court's budget from $56.3 million to $170 million and allow it to continue operations until March 2011, past its originally scheduled completion date in 2009. The audit found:

Combating the dual challenges of a past which has left behind a nation still struggling to achieve modern management practices and the daunting task of meeting the expectations of the international community has been an uphill task for the ECCC.

In this critical phase of its operations it was encouraging see that there is a willingness and commitment to meet the expectations of the international community. A great deal of standardization has happened over a very short period which has replaced the ad hoc arrangements that used to be the norm when ECCC commenced its operations. The recent reviews and audits have also helped in highlighting areas of weaknesses which have been improved upon.

Robust HR systems have been developed and implemented to address previous shortcomings, to give effective support to the judicial process and to minimize the risk of questionable HR practices occurring in the future. There is however a degree of hand-holding and capacity building necessary to support ECCC to continue to meet expected international standards. Zero tolerance for non-compliance with HR systems and the Code of Conduct will also support ongoing improvement in the performance of the ECCC.

[JURIST] Zimbabwean police Friday raided the offices of independent election observers and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) [party website], arresting hundreds in an alleged crackdown on anti-government subversives. Witnesses say that police were searching for vote counting materials that might show that MDC candidate Morgan Tsvangirai [BBC profile] won the contested March 29 presidential election [JURIST report]. The raids come just one day after US Envoy Jendayi Frazer announced that the US believes Tsvangirai won the election outright [AP report] and called for Mugabe to step down. Official results of the election have still not been published.

Last week, current Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] and his Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) [party website] accused [JURIST report] Tsvangirai of treason, saying that Tsvangirai and Britain are conspiring to overthrow Mugabe. MDC Secretary General Tendai Biti said Sunday that more than 400 supporters of the MDC have been detained [JURIST report] and more than 3,000 families displaced since the March 29 election. AP has more. From Zimbabwe, the Herald has local coverage.

[JURIST] Over 3,000 prison inmates convicted of crack cocaine offenses have had their sentences reduced under an amendment to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines [USSC materials], according to a study [PDF text] released Thursday by the US Sentencing Commission [official website]. Of the 3,647 applications for early release, 3,075 have been granted and 572 denied, but most prisoners denied turned out to not actually be eligible for sentence reductions under the amendment. AP has more.

In December, the Sentencing Commission voted unanimously [JURIST report] to give retroactive effect to an earlier amendment to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines that reduces penalties for crack cocaine offenders [press release]. The amendment, which took effect November 1, was intended to narrow the disparity between sentences for powder and crack cocaine offenses. Under the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 [text], the Sentencing Commission is authorized to retroactively apply amendments to the Guidelines that reduce penalties for classes of offenses or offenders. The final decision whether and how much to reduce a crack cocaine offender's sentence will rest with a federal sentencing judge, who will weigh public safety concerns. Retroactivity took effect on March 3, 2008. US Attorney General Michael Mukasey urged the Senate in February to block the amendment's retroactive effect, but his efforts were rejected [JURIST reports].

[JURIST] US Marine Sgt. Jermaine A. Nelson should face court-martial for the November 2004 murder of an Iraqi detainee in Fallujah [JURIST news archive], a US Marine hearing officer found following an Article 32 pretrial hearing [JAG backgrounder]. Nelson was charged [JURIST report] in December with murder and five counts of dereliction of duty after allegedly killing an unarmed captive during a bloody battle [CNN report] between US troops and Iraqi insurgents over the city of Fallujah. He faces life imprisonment if convicted. The final decision of whether to proceed to trial rests with Lt. Gen. Samuel Helland who oversees the case as commander of Camp Pendleton's 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

In July, the Naval Criminal Investigation Service (NCIS) [official website] announced investigations of at least 10 Marines [JURIST report] in connection with the Fallujah offensive after former Marine Corporal Ryan Weemer admitted during a polygraphed job interview with the US Secret Service that he had witnessed indiscriminate killings in Fallujah. Military journalist Nathaniel Helms later corroborated that account, reporting that he witnessed Marines execute subdued Iraqi prisoners, whose bodies were later buried under rubble from an air strike. Weemer was charged last month with murder and dereliction of duty in March and former Marine Sgt. Jose Nazario was charged last year with voluntary manslaughter [JURIST reports]. AP has more.

[JURIST] The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website; JURIST news archive] said Friday that it has transferred [press release] a former Bosnian Croat leader who was convicted of war crimes related to the torture and persecutions of Muslims during the Bosnian War [JURIST news archive] to an Italian prison to serve out his sentence. In 2003, the ICTY convicted Mladen Naletilic [ICTY backgrounder, PDF; TrialWatch profile] of torture, wanton destruction and plunder, among other charges, and sentenced him to 20 years in prison.

ICTY suspects are held at a detention unit [ICTY backgrounder] in The Hague during trial, and are then after conviction are moved to one of 15 countries that have agreed to take custody of ICTY defendants. The UN News Centre has more.

[JURIST] The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Thursday ruled [judgment text; press release] that Russia violated the civil rights of 13 men accused of terrorism in Uzbekistan by detaining them without trial for 20 months. In 2006, Russia agreed to extradite [JURIST report] the 13 men to Uzbekistan to face charges connected with a 2005 uprising in Andijan [JURIST news archive] that resulted in the massacre of unarmed Uzbek civilians [BBC backgrounder], but the ECHR Thursday ruled that deporting the men to Uzbekistan would further violate their rights. AP has more.

Memorial [advocacy website], a Moscow-based human rights group, has said the cases against the 13 men are false and that they may face torture if they return to Uzbekistan. Memorial has also asserted that the men have been determined to be refugees by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees [official website], but that the Russian government has refused to recognize their refugee status. The Russian Prosecutor General's office [official website, in Russian] had temporarily halted the extradition [JURIST report] of the 13 men while the case was pending before the ECHR.

[JURIST] Argentinean politician and former police chief and mayor Luis Abelardo Patti, wanted by Argentina [JURIST news archive] for allegedly torturing and killing several people during Argentina's 1976-1983 "Dirty War" [GlobalSecurity.org backgrounder; JURIST news archive], was arrested in Buenos Aires Thursday. Patti, who was elected to Argentina's lower Congressional house in 2005, had just this month received approval by the Supreme Court to take up his seat. Congress, however, voted Thursday to deny him his seat, which would have granted him immunity from any charges, citing his alleged connections to the "Dirty War" campaign. He was arrested hours later.

Argentina has recently stepped up investigations into hundreds of human rights cases stemming from the "Dirty War," during which at least 9,000 Argentinians were tortured and "disappeared" by the Argentinean military government in an attempt to silence leftist criticism of the military regime. Some human rights groups say the death toll was closer to 30,000. In 2006, a key witness testifying against "Dirty War" suspects disappeared [IPS/GIN report] after implicating Patti with torturing him in the 70's. The testimony by Luis Gerez contributed to the delay to Patti taking up his Congressional seat. Gerez was the second of two "Dirty War" witnesses to disappear around the end of 2006, but he reappeared [BBC report] three days after his disappearance. AP has more.

[JURIST] The US Senate on Thursday voted 95-0 [roll call] in favor of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (GINA) [HR 493 materials], legislation aimed at preventing employers and health insurers from discriminating against people who have a genetic predisposition to disease. Employers would be barred from basing hiring and firing decisions on genetic risk or predisposition to disease, while health insurers would not be permitted to deny coverage based on genetic information. Called "the first civil-rights bill of the new century of life sciences" [press release] by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) [official website] and other senators, the bill was praised by President Bush [speech text; JURIST report] earlier this year, who said "we want medical research to go forward without an individual fearing of personal discrimination." The House is expected to pass the bill soon, and Bush has already promised to sign it.

Genetic nondiscrimination legislation was passed unanimously by the Senate in 2003 but failed in the House of Representatives. US Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) [official website] reintroduced the latest bill in January 2007. If it becomes law, according to the bill's findings, the law will establish "a national and uniform basic standard ... necessary to fully protect the public from discrimination and allay their concerns about the potential for discrimination, thereby allowing individuals to take advantage of genetic testing, technologies, research, and new therapies." The Los Angeles Times has more.

[JURIST] Navy Captain Prescott Prince [Miami Herald profile, PDF], the military-appointed lawyer [JURIST report] for confessed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed [BBC profile; JURIST news archive], has expressed concern over the fairness of his client's upcoming military commission trial. In an interview with CNN on Thursday, Prince said that the possibility that the government will introduce as evidence statements made by Mohammed obtained by harsh interrogation tactics, including waterboarding [JURIST news archive], could undermine the legitimacy of the trial. Prince noted that in civilian courts statements made to officials while under coercion are not admissible, but that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 [PDF text] allows admission of such statements during military commission trials. Prince also expressed concern in the interview that he would be prevented from cross-examining the witnesses against Mohammed and from reviewing all the evidence brought by the government. A trial date has not yet been set.

Mohammed admitted under oath during his first hearing [JURIST report] before a Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) [DOD backgrounder] in March 2007 that he masterminded the 9/11 attacks [JURIST report]. In February, the US government said it would seek the death penalty [JURIST report] for Mohammed and five other Guantanamo detainees accused of involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks. CNN has more.