[JURIST] A Russian court on Friday rejected an application for parole made by former Russian oil executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky [defense website; JURIST news archive], who applied for early release [JURIST report] from Krasnokamensk penal colony [Guardian Khodorkovsky backgrounder] in July. Khodorkovsky headed the now-bankrupt OAO Yukos Oil Co. [Time backgrounder] and was sent to prison by the Russian government in 2005 to serve an eight-year sentence for fraud and tax evasion [JURIST report]. A court judge said the application was rejected because Khodorkovsky had disobeyed guards' orders, refused to participate in a training program, and is facing 20 more years in prison if convicted on new charges [press release; Bloomberg report] of theft and money laundering. AFP has more. RIA Novosti has local coverage.

Prosecutors had first indicted Khodorkovsky on the additional money laundering charges in February 2007, after announcing plans to do so [JURIST reports] in January of that year. A Russian court had originally ordered that he be transferred to a Moscow prison while the charges were investigated, but that order was later vacated despite a lawsuit by his lawyers [JURIST reports] seeking the move. Khodorkovsky, an opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has always maintained his innocence and insisted that the charges against him are politically motivated, but Russian prosecutors have denied the accusations [JURIST report].

[JURIST] Prosecutors before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) [official website; JURIST news archive] on Thursday appealed [statement, PDF] the indictment of former Khmer Rouge prison chief Kaing Guek Eav [TrialWatch profile], also known as "Duch," saying it should have included additional charges. The court had issued a closing order [PDF text; JURIST report] earlier this month to officially indict Duch on charges of crimes against humanity and violations of the Geneva Conventions. In a statement [PDF text] responding to the appeal, the court made no comment other than to say that the appeal would delay the trial, which was to be tribunal's first since it was was established in 2006. Duch, who was in charge of the notorious S-21 prison in Phnom Penh, is one of five top leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime [JURIST news archive; BBC backgrounder] currently in ECCC custody. AFP has more. The Phnom Penh Post has local coverage.

In April, ECCC officials said that the court expected to complete its investigation [JURIST report] of Duch by July. Duch was arrested in 1999 on genocide charges and was subsequently charged with war crimes by a military court in March and with crimes against humanity [JURIST reports] by the ECCC in July. It is thought that those charges were brought to keep Duch in custody while the ECCC began its initial operations. A panel of ECCC judges ruled late last year that Duch should not be granted bail [JURIST report] while preparations for his trial continue.

...even assuming attorney fees and auditing costs must be a direct and foreseeable result of the offense -- such a requirement was clearly met here. Defendants perpetrated a complicated fraud against a large corporation and a number of its clients, as well as the states to which those clients were required to turn over... funds. That this fraud would force the corporation to expend large sums of money on its own internal investigation as well as its participation in the government's investigation and prosecution of defendants' offenses is not surprising. There is no doubt that EDS's attorney fees and auditing costs were a direct and foreseeable result of defendants' offenses.

[JURIST] Three of the largest brokerage firms in the US reached a settlement [press release] with the New York Attorney General's office [official website] and securities regulators representing 48 states on Thursday, agreeing to pay $10 billion to investors who purchased auction rate securities. The agreement is the result of an effort to settle claims that Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, and Deutsche Bank [corporate websites] had misled investors about the safety of auction rate securities during marketing and sales of the investments. According to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo [official profile], the banking firms will buy back all such securities held by retail investors, a group including all individuals, charities, non-profits, and small to medium size businesses. Commenting on the agreement, Cuomo said:

Today is a win for investors and a win for the market, and to date we’ve returned close to $50 billions back into the pockets of investors... At the heart of this investigation, is improving confidence for the investor and for the market, and today we’ve taken another giant step forward towards fulfilling this goal.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit [official website] ruled [decision, PDF] Thursday that a Pennsylvania law imposing reporting and curriculum review requirements on parents who home school their children does not violate federal freedom of religion protections. The case was brought by six families who had argued that Act 169 [text], the state law requiring the reviews, illegally burdened their right to freely exercise their religion. The appeals court disagreed and rejected claims the families had brought under the First and Fourteenth amendments [LII backgrounders], as well as the Civil Rights Act [text], saying the regulation did not impose an increased burden on these families:

Act 169 is a neutral law of general applicability. It neither targets religious practice nor selectively imposes burdens on religiously motivated conduct. Instead, it imposes the same requirements on parents who home-school for secular reasons as on parents who do so for religious reasons. Furthermore, nothing in the record suggests Commonwealth school officials discriminate against religiously motivated home education programs (e.g., denying approval of home education programs because they include faith-based curriculum materials). [sic]

[JURIST] The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website] assigned a new panel of judges Thursday to the upcoming war crimes trial of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic [ICTY materials; JURIST news archive]. The changes come following Karadzic's recent request [JURIST report], in which he argued that presiding Judge Alphons Orie [DPA profile] and other judges assigned to the case are biased against him because they have overseen ICTY cases brought against various other former Bosnian Serb leaders, and would want to maintain their own lines of reasoning. To illustrate his argument, Karadzic pointed to the case of Momcilo Krajisnik [ICTY backgrounder], who was sentenced [judgment, PDF; JURIST report] to 27 years imprisonment for crimes similar to those of which Karadzic is accused. According to ICTY spokesperson Nerma Jelacic, the moves were made to ensure proper trial management and not because of the request from Karadzic. Bloomberg has more.

Karadzic, who has been indicted [text] on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, was arrested [JURIST report] in Serbia in July after evading capture for nearly 13 years. Later that month, Serbian authorities transferred [press release] Karadzic to the custody of the ICTY. Karadzic was originally indicted [text] in 1995, but had been in hiding under an assumed identity as an alternative medicine practitioner [BBC report] until his arrest. He is accused of involvement in the Srebrenica [JURIST news archive] massacre and other war crimes against Bosnian Muslims and Croats during ethnic conflicts in the former Yugoslavia.