[JURIST] A Croatian district court judged convicted a retired Croatian general of war crimes Friday for failing to prevent his soldiers from torturing and killing Serbs and destroying their property during the Croatian War of Independence. Retired Gen. Mirko Norac [case information, PDF] knew that his soldiers were torturing and killing people and destroying property, but was held to have violated his duty [Al Jazeera report] by neither stopping it nor punishing the soldiers who killed 23 civilians and five prisoners of war, tortured at least five victims and destroyed about 300 homes. Nordac was sentenced to seven years in prison in addition to the 12-year sentence he is already serving for planning a 1991 killing of Serbs. The judge acquitted retired Gen. Rahim Ademi, whose case was tried with Nordac's, because Ademi did not have sufficient authority during the war crimes to be held accountable. Both sides plan to appeal [B92 report]. The International Herald Tribune has more.

Norac pleaded not guilty [JURIST report] at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website] after voluntarily surrendering to the tribunal following his indictment [JURIST report] in 2004. The indictments [text] against him and Ademi were consolidated that same year. The ICTY transferred [JURIST report] the case to Croatia in 2005, and both generals again pleaded not guilty [JURIST report].

[JURIST] Rwandan justice officials Friday criticized a decision [text, PDF; official press release] by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) [official website] denying a motion to transfer an accused genocide leader to the Rwandan court system for trial. An ICTR panel in Tanzania Wednesday denied prosecutors' request to transfer former businessman Yussuf Munyakazi [case materials] to the Rwandan justice system, citing concerns that punishments imposed in place of the now-abolished death penalty might not conform with international human-rights standards and that the Rwandan judiciary might not be fully independent and immune from outside pressure. Rwandan Prosecutor General Martin Ngoga said he was disappointed and insisted that Rwanda's judicial system was fully independent and capable of guaranteeing a fair trial. Rwandan Justice Mminister Tharcisse Karugarama said that the country had been dealing with genocide issues since 1995 and that suggesting unfairness in the court system was itself unfair [BBC report]. The transfer motion was considered part of a strategy to remove some cases from the ICTR so that the court could finish all its trials by the deadline at the end of this year. Both parties have 15 days to appeal the decision. Reuters has more. From Rwanda, the New Times has local coverage.

Officials in Congo captured [press release] Munyakazi in 2004. He was charged [indictment text, PDF] with genocide or complicity in genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity for his suspected role in the killings of thousand of Tutsis during the 1994 Rwandan genocide [BBC backgrounder].

[JURIST] The US and Libya have agreed to find a way to speed compensation for families of Americans who were killed by acts of terrorism authorized by the Libyan government, both countries said in a statement [text] issued by the US State Department [official website] Friday. Meeting in London earlier this week, "[b]oth parties affirmed their desire to work together to resolve all outstanding claims in good faith and expeditiously through the establishment of a fair compensation mechanism." The negotiations are seen as a way to normalize relations between the US and Libya and to allow Libya to accelerate development of its oil resources. Libya is believed to have entered into the negotiations because of concern over recent legislation, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 [HR 4986 materials; JURIST report], which allows victims of state-sponsored terrorism to sue for that country's assets held in the US. An agreement between the two nations would likely cover eight terrorist incidents including the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 [BBC backgrounder; JURIST news archive] over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people, 189 of which were Americans; the 1986 bombing of the La Belle disco in Berlin, Germany [BBC backgrounder], that killed two US servicemen and injured 120 others, including 40 Americans; and the 1989 bombing of French passenger jet UTA Flight 772 [BBC backgrounder], which killed 170 people, including 7 Americans.

In January, a US District Judge ruled [PDF text; JURIST report] that the Libyan government and six Libyan officials should pay more than $6 billion in damages [plaintiff press release] to families of those Americans who died in the Flight 772 bombing. Libya has also agreed to pay $10 million to each family of the Pam Am 103 victims. It has paid 8 million so far but has not made the additional $2 million dollar payment because of disputes over the return obligations of the US. Reuters has more. AP has additional coverage.

[JURIST] Ten US state attorneys general have petitioned [brief, PDF] the Supreme Court of California [official website] to postpone implementation of its May 15 decision [opinion, PDF; JURIST report] legalizing same-sex marriages until after state elections in November. California is slated to allow all same-sex couples, regardless of state citizenship, to wed in California, but each of the 10 petitioning states bans recognition of same-sex marriages. The attorneys general - from Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah - wrote Thursday that if California starts issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples [JURIST report] on June 17 as announced, many same-sex couples in their states would become "marriage tourists" in California and the states' courts would then face unfair, extensive and burdensome litigation on whether to recognize the marriages. The AGs also joined conservative Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defense Fund's recent petition [text, PDF; JURIST report] in saying that deciding the issue before California citizens vote in November on a likely proposed amendment to the California state constitution banning same-sex marriage could lead to legal havoc. Attorneys for the city and county of San Francisco have responded [press release; opposition brief to ADF petition, PDF] that a stay would mingle judicial and political processes and would deny rights based on a merely proposed state constitutional amendment. The New York Times has more. The San Francisco Chronicle has local coverage.

Recognition of California same-sex marriages is not universally opposed in other US jurisdictions. Earlier this month, one day before the California ruling, New York Governor David Paterson ordered [memo, PDF; JURIST report] that state agencies recognize out-of-state same-sex marriages as legal marriages in New York.

[JURIST] US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice [official profile; JURIST news archive] Friday defended the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] in the face of a resolution [text, in Icelandic] by the Icelandic parliament [official website] calling for the prison's closure. At a news conference [DOS transcript] in Reykjavik with Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladottir, Iceland´s Minister for Foreign Affairs [official website], Gísladottir said she had given Rice a copy of the resolution condemning the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo as inhumane and urging that the camp be shut down. Rice countered that a recent report [PDF text] by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) [official website] showed no evidence of ongoing human rights violations at the facility. Rice went on to note that President Bush also wanted to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, but there is still a "problem with what you do with the dangerous people who are there."

Earlier this month, Rice defended [JURIST report] the Bush administration's authorization of the use of harsh interrogation tactics, including waterboarding [JURIST news archive], on suspected terrorist detainees. AP has more. Iceland Review has local coverage.

[JURIST] The United States District Court for the District of Columbia [official website] ruled Friday that a major provision in the 2006 reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) [text; DOJ backgrounder] is constitutional. The court's decision [PDF text] in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Gonzales [JURIST report; DOJ case documents] upheld the validity of Section 5 of the VRA, requiring states or towns with histories of racial discrimination to get Justice Department (DOJ) [official website] or court approval prior to making changes with their election procedures. The plaintiff in the case, a municipal utility district in Texas, had asked for an exemption to the law and argued that Section 5 is not neutrally applied to all 50 states. The court denied the exemption because it found that the plaintiff was not a “political subdivision” and it rejected the plaintiff's argument on constitutionality because it found that Congress's action in extending the provisions for another 25 years was rational.

The US House of Representatives and the Senate [JURIST reports] passed the renewal bill in July 2006 and President Bush signed it into law [JURIST report] the following August. Section 5 is intended to protect voters in states with histories of racial profiling at the polls, and only allows changes in voter protocol that do not have a racially discriminatory purpose and will not negatively impact minority voters. AP has more.