[JURIST] A Zimbabwean court on Monday delayed ruling on whether leading human rights campaigner Jestina Mukoko [advocacy website] and eight other activists charged with plotting to overthrow the government should be released pending trial. Mukoko, the head of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, and eight other activists were charged last week [JURIST report] with recruiting or attempting to recruit people to undergo military training to overthrow President Robert Mugabe's [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] government. Following accusations of police torture, a High Court judge declared the detention of Mukoko and her codefendants unlawful and ordered that they be taken to a private hospital and given police protection. The government immediately appealed the decision and neither Mukoko nor her codefendants have appeared at the hospital. Several of the accused appeared in court with bloodied and swollen faces [AP report].

Mukoko played a key role in monitoring and publicizing the wave of violence that hit the country before and after recent presidential elections and the run-off elections [JURIST reports] that followed. Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai [BBC profile; JURIST news archive], presidential candidate of the Movement for Democratic Change [party website], have been disputing results of March elections for months. They signed a power-sharing agreement [Harare Tribune text] in September, under which Mugabe would remain president, Tsvangirai would become prime minister, and each would have two deputies. The agreement, however, has been stymied over disagreements regarding division of top Cabinet posts, and violence and allegations of human rights violations continue to mar the election results, with the MDC estimating that nearly 100 of its members have been killed since March, and more than 100 imprisoned [AFP report].

[JURIST] Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheal Martin [official profile] has said that Ireland would likely accept detainees [Irish Examiner report] released from the Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] military prison if US President-elect Barack Obama closed the facility. In an interview with the Irish Examiner published Monday, Martin noted that Ireland supports closure of Guantanamo and said it was a "logical follow-through" for Ireland to accept the detainees in order to assist in the facility's closure, though he added that no detainees with terrorist ties would be accepted. He also said that Ireland's final decision on whether to take in Guantanamo detainees would fall on the Irish cabinet.

Obama has long indicated that he would close the military prison at Guantanamo bay if elected, raising concerns about where to relocate the released prisoners. Rights groups have urged closure of the controversial military prison upon Obama's inauguration in January, with the ACLU launching an ad campaign [image, PDF] calling for Obama to end military commissions on his first day in office. Earlier this month, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates [official profile] ordered the Pentagon to draft a proposal for shutting down the prison [press release; JURIST report] in preparation for a possible order from Obama. Germany, France, and Portugal [JURIST reports] have said they would consider taking in released Guantanamo detainees, and have encouraged all EU member states to cooperate in formulating a plan for accepting prisoners who cannot be returned to their homelands because of risk of torture. Britain and Australia [JURIST report] have said they would consider accepting detainees on a case-by-case basis. Poland and Spain [JURIST reports] have expressed reservations about accepting Guantanamo detainees, while the Netherlands has said it will not accept any [AFP report]. Obama and his advisers have yet to reach a firm decision [JURIST report] on the closure of the facility.

[JURIST] Four criminal trials began Monday in China's Hebei province for persons accused of involvement in the country's recent melamine-tainted milk scandal. The four are generally accused [Xinhua report] in connection with the manufacture of two hundred tons of melamine-containing protein powder and adding it to raw milk before selling the mixture to Chinese dairies between November 2007 and August 2008. The formal charges against them have not been specified, however. The main dairy that purchased the additive was government-owned farm Shijiazhuang Sanlu Group Co., which was forced to cease production in September [Xinhua report]. The milk company filed for bankruptcy last Wednesday, and the petition was accepted by a court Friday [CNN reports], the same day that separate trials began [JURIST report] for six other producers of similar melamine-containing milk powder. Former Sanlu general manager and board chairwoman Tian Wenhua is scheduled to face trial on Wednesday. Earlier this month the Hebei Supreme Court rejected a class action suit [JURIST report] filed against Sanlu by the families of children who died or were harmed as a result of tainted milk.

News of possible milk powder contamination [JURIST news archive] by the chemical melamine first broke in September [Guardian report], following the death of an infant and reports that at least 50 other infants had fallen ill after consuming baby formula, leading to massive recalls [BBC report] of both liquid milk products and milk powders. To date, the Chinese Health Ministry has attributed the contamination to the deaths of six children, and at least 294,000 other children have been affected. On Saturday, the Chinese Dairy Industry Association [Light Industry backgrounder] announced that 22 companies will provide financial compensation to families whose infants were harmed by the contaminated milk. Families will receive a one-time payment of an unspecified amount, and may recover further for any future related medical expenses.

[JURIST] The Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal [governing statute, PDF] on Sunday commenced a new trial of two Saddam-era officials, including senior figures of Hussein's government, for their alleged involvement in the execution of thousands of political opponents during Hussein’s rule. The defendants include Hussein’s cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid [BBC profile; JURIST news archive], better known in the Western media as “Chemical Ali,” who has received the death sentence during two previous trials [JURIST report] and is currently being tried on separate charges [JURIST report] in connection with a 1988 gas attack that killed 5,000 of Iraq's minority Kurds. Others on trial include Sabawi and Watban Ibrahim, Hussein’s half brothers, and Tariq Aziz [BBC profile; JURIST news archive], Hussein’s deputy prime minister, who face additional charges in other trials being heard by the same court. Defendants in the immediate case have been charged with “crimes against humanity” for their involvement in the arrest of tens of thousands of members of Iraqi political parties, sent to jail and often executed between 1981 and Saddam's ouster in 2003. Many of the victims were members of current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Dawa party [official website], founded in 1957 in a bid to combat secularism and promote the role of Islam in Iraqi politics.

The Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal was originally set up under the American-led occupation authority to try members of the Hussein government accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes or other serious crimes committed between 1968 and 2003. It organized the trial of Saddam Hussein and sentenced Chemical Ali to death once for his involvement in the repression of Shiites in southern Iraq during the Saddam regime and again the killing of Kurdish Iraqis using chemical weapons during the 1988 Anfal campaign [BBC backgrounder; JURIST news archive]. His death sentence in the Anfal case was upheld on appeal in September 2007, but Iraq's Presidency Council did not approve the execution [JURIST reports] until late February 2008. That is now on hold pending the completion of other trials.