[JURIST] The Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence [official website] reached a settlement agreement Friday with four claimants who say they were abused by priests [JURIST news archive] several decades ago and that church officials had taken steps to cover up previous allegations of abuse. Christopher Young, Donald Leighton, Marc G. Banville, and two sisters of a fourth unnamed man who has died, agreed to settle their lawsuits for a total of $1.3 million. Young, Leighton, and Banville filed their claims in 2003 after they failed to reach a settlement with the diocese in 2002, when it settled [NY Times report] the claims of 36 others who said they were victims of molestation for $13.5 million. The men alleged that they were abused by three different priests on different occasions from the 1970's through the 1980's. The Bishop of Providence, Thomas Tobin [official profile], and diocese officials deny any misconduct in connection with the settlement. AP has more. The Providence Journal has local coverage.

Other dioceses across the country have reached similar settlements. In September 2007, the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh [diocesan website] announced [JURIST report] the creation of a $1.25 million fund and the Catholic Diocese of San Diego [diocesan website] announced an agreement [JURIST report] to pay $198.1 million to settle claims of sexual abuse by their clergy. A Los Angeles Superior Court in July 2007 approved a $660 million settlement [JURIST report] between the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles [diocesan website] and plaintiffs in 508 outstanding clergy sex abuse lawsuits. In January 2007, the Catholic Diocese of Spokane [diocesan website] agreed to settle molestation claims [JURIST report] against its own priests for $48 million as part of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization plan.

[JURIST] London's High Court Friday gave UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband [official profile] a week to defend his office's refusal [FCO press release] earlier this month to turn over documents relating to the alleged extraordinary rendition [JURIST news archive] and torture of Binyam Mohamed [Reprieve profile], the last British resident still detained at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive]. The High Court ruled [PDF, judgment; JURIST report] last week that the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) [official website] must turn over evidence [Independent report] that is "essential" to Mohamed's defense that information against him was obtained through torture. The FCO refused to turn over the information, citing national security issues. Mohamed was arrested in Pakistan in 2002 on accusations that he conspired to assist al Qaeda in attacking civilians. A decision on whether the High Court will force the disclosure of the material is set for September. BBC News has more. The Guardian has additional coverage.

Mohamed asserts that after he was arrested in Pakistan, he was turned over to US officials who then transferred him to Moroccan agents who tortured him; he was later transferred to Guantanamo Bay in 2004. In December, in a letter [DOC, text] sent by his lawyer to Miliband, he asked the UK government [JURIST report] to ensure that photographic evidence of his alleged torture be preserved. For most of 2007, Binyam was one of five UK residents detained at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive]. Three of those were released [press release; JURIST report] from US custody in December. The official status of a fourth detainee remains unclear.

[JURIST] Pakistani authorities Saturday reinstated four more judges ousted from their positions in November when former President Pervez Musharraf proclaimed emergency rule. The reappointment of four judges of the Lahore High Court follows an announcement Wednesday that eight other judges in Sindh province were being restored to office [JURIST report]. The latest reappointments bring the total of resinstated judges to 12, out of the total of 60 superior court judges removed, including former Pakistan Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry. PTI has more.

Representatives of Pakistan's lawyers' movement have denounced the "selective" reappointments as an effort undermine their campaign for total reinstatement. Pakistan media reports claimed last week that the governing Pakistan People's Party plans to reappoint some 16 ousted judges [PakTribune report], a move opposed by its former coalition partner [JURIST report], the PML-N, led by ex-prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

[JURIST] The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) [official website; JURIST news archive] quashed a 25-year prison sentence against former Rwandan army officer Tharcisse Muvunyi [ICTR case materials] Friday, ruling that there was insufficient evidence for his conviction on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. Muvunyi will face a retrial on a charge of inciting genocide. Muvunyi is accused [indictment, PDF] of participating in several public meetings during the months of April and May 1994, during which he and other local government officials allegedly called on the Hutu majority population to kill Tutsi civilians. Muvunyi, the former Commander of a Rwandan military school, was convicted [JURIST report; ICTR judgment and sentence, PDF] in September 2006 for his role in the ethnic separation and subsequent killing of orphaned children and the killing of at least 140 students and Red Cross workers. AFP has more.

The ICTR was established in 1995 to try those suspected of having committed genocide during the 1994 Rwandan genocide [BBC backgrounder]. The mandate for the ICTR is set to expire in December 2008, although the court has announced that it will be unable to complete its work [JURIST report] before that time. In June, the prosecutor of the ICTR asked the UN Security Council [official website] to extend the ICTR's mandate [JURIST report] so that the tribunal can complete its trials.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] Friday that the conviction and 210 month prison sentence of Juan Francisco Salazar, who was convicted of tampering with a witness in a drug trial, were proper. A jury found Salazar guilty of violating 18 USC 1512(b)(2)(A) [text] after evidence was presented that he threatened to rape and kill Sarah Rolon, in order to prevent Rolon's husband, Ira Rolon, from testifying against his brothers. Ira Rolon had been indicted with Elijah and Rocky Salazar on charges of possession and distribution of methamphetamine, marijuana, and cocaine in Oklahoma, but he pleaded guilty and became a prosecution witness against the two.

Salazar argued that the evidence against him was insufficient and that the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas [official website] erred in applying the sentencing guidelines under 18 USC 1512(j) when it sentenced him to almost 18 years in prison. The Court rejected that contention, saying:

Under the manifest-miscarriage-of-justice standard, Salazar must show either that the record is “devoid of evidence of guilt” or that the evidence is “so tenuous that a conviction is shocking”... It is quite obvious that Salazar falls far short of satisfying the very narrow manifest-miscarriage-of-justice standard. Indeed, his sufficiency challenge would fail under the more lenient standard of review had he properly preserved this challenge.

As noted, when Salazar was sentenced, ten years was the statutory maximum for a violation of § 1512(b)(2)(A). In that regard, Salazar claims the district court erred by applying the penalty provisions of § 1512(j) and sentencing him to 210 months’ imprisonment, which he asserts was impermissibly above the above-referenced ten-year maximum. Section 1512(j), however, provides for a higher sentence...Our having held § 1512(j) was properly applied by the district court in calculating Salazar’s sentence, the maximum statutory penalty Salazar faced was life imprisonment. Accordingly, his 210-month sentence did not exceed the prescribed statutory maximum and Apprendi is not implicated.