[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit [official website] on Friday denied [text, PDF] a petition for rehearing in the case of Wadih El-Hage [GlobalSecurity profile] who was convicted of the 1998 bombing of two US embassies [PBS backgrounder] in Tanzania and Kenya. El-Hage's petition for rehearing contended that the circuit court's earlier decision [opinion, PDF, JURIST report] on Fourth Amendment challenges omitted any consideration of whether challenged searches were supported by probable cause and that the court failed to consider whether the searches could be conducted at all. In denying the petition, the court said:

Contrary to the petitioner’s claim, our reasonableness inquiry was not confined to the execution of the searches, but more broadly considered whether the searches comported with Fourth Amendment standards. As noted, the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review performed a substantially similar "totality of the circumstances" analysis, when faced with a similar challenge, to determine the reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment of the surveillance in question. That court's reasonableness inquiry, like our own, considered both the circumstances giving rise to the decision to conduct the surveillance and the breadth of the surveillance that was subsequently conducted. [citations omitted]

[JURIST] Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert [official website] on Thursday placed justice minister Daniel Friedman [official profile] in charge of defending Israel against war crimes charges stemming from the conflict in Gaza [BBC backgrounder]. Olmert appointed Friedman to head an inter-ministerial team to investigate [Ynet report] and form a legal defense against potential war crimes charges for the civilians and military personnel involved in Israel's 22-day assault on Gaza. The attacks have garnered international condemnation by the UN and the European Union [JURIST reports], and on Monday Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] accused Israel of war crimes [press release, JURIST report], citing the use of white phosphorous [GlobalSecurity backgrounder] in the midst of a dense civilian population. Following the advocacy group's accusation, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon [official profile] demanded [statement] on Tuesday that those responsible for bombing UN buildings in Palestinian territory be held responsible for using excessive force. Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak [official profile] explained in a statement that the government must give defense to those involved in the attacks, as they were following government orders in Operation Cast Lead.

Last week, International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo [official profile] said that the ICC lacks jurisdiction [JURIST report] to investigate possible war crimes committed by Israel in Gaza. Moreno-Ocampo's statement came after calls by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) [advocacy website] for the UN Security Council [official website] to refer Israel to the ICC for an investigation. Moreno-Ocampo said the court currently lacks jurisdiction over Israel because it is not a member state.

[JURIST] Both Russia and Georgia must investigate possible violations of the laws of war [HRW press release] during and after the week-long South Ossetia conflict [BBC backgrounder] in August 2008, according to a report [text, PDF] released Friday by Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website]. The report, entitled "Up in Flames: Humanitarian Law Violations in the Conflict Over South Ossetia," alleges that Russian, Georgian, and South Ossetian militias violated the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 [materials] and its First Additional Protocol of 1977 [text], to which both Georgia and Russia are parties. The report further claims that Georgia violated the Second Additional Protocol of 1977 [text] to the Geneva Conventions, to which it is a party. The alleged violations involve attacks on civilians and civilian targets, use of cluster bombs [JURIST news archive], poor treatment of prisoners of war and detained civilians, and the displacement of Georgian civilians. The report says that these violations flow from:

the indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks by both Georgian and Russian forces, ... the South Ossetian forces' campaign of deliberate and systematic destruction of certain ethnic Georgian villages in South Ossetia [and from] Russia's failure to ensure public order and safety in areas of Georgia that were under its effective control.

[JURIST] The prison formerly known as Abu-Ghraib [CBC backgrounder, JURIST news archive] will be reopened as soon as renovations are completed, and will be renamed Baghdad Central Prison, officials from the Iraqi Ministry of Justice in Baghdad announced on Thursday. Several Iraqi government officials, including Acting Justice Minister Safaaldeen Al-Safi have visited the site [KUNA report] to inspect the work in progress, which officials say will meet international standards once completed. The Iraqi Cabinet [official website, in Arabic] approved the Defense Ministry's proposal to reopen the prison [JURIST report] in September of 2008.

The prison, which was the site of the US detainee torture scandal, was returned to the Iraqi government [JURIST report] in late 2006. In December 2008, the Senate Armed Services Committee [official website] reported [text, PDF] that senior US officials are responsible [JURIST report] for the use of abusive interrogation techniques against detainees held in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. Their bipartisan report explicitly rejected Bush administration claims that tough interrogation methods have helped keep the country and its troops safe and stated that the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, "was not simply the result of a few soldiers acting on their own" but grew out of interrogation policies approved by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top officials. Earlier this month, US President Barack Obama said during an interview that he has not ruled out prosecuting officials for rights abuses [JURIST report] committed under the Bush administration.

[JURIST] US President Barack Obama [official profile] on Thursday ordered a review [text] of the detention of Qatar national Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri [NYT profile; JURIST news archive]. Al-Marri is the only individual currently being held on US soil by the Department of Defense (DOD) [official website] as an enemy combatant [JURIST news archive], and is unaffected by Obama's order to close [text; JURIST report] the offshore Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] prison facility. The order calls for the participation and cooperation of the Attorney General, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Director of National Intelligence, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and others in quickly resolving the matter. In December, the Supreme Court granted certiorari [JURIST report] in al-Marri's case to review a ruling [JURIST report] by the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upholding his indefinite detention. Counsel for petitioner al-Marri filed a brief [text, PDF] Wednesday. On Thursday, Acting Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler requested an extension [text, PDF] of the deadline for the government's brief, currently due February 20, to allow for the government to resolve the matter in compliance with Obama's order. According to the request, al-Marri has consented to the extension.

Al-Marri was arrested at his home in Peoria, Illinois by civilian authorities in 2001, and was indicted for other crimes. In 2003, then-President George W. Bush declared him an enemy combatant [CNN report] and ordered the attorney general to transfer custody of al-Marri to the defense secretary, claiming inherent authority to hold him indefinitely. Al-Marri has claimed abuse [JURIST report] while being held in a US Navy brig in Charleston, South Carolina, where he currently remains.

[JURIST] Human rights figures and political leaders around the world hailed Thursday's executive order [text; JURIST report] by US President Barack Obama closing the Guantanamo Bay [JURIST archive] detention facility. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights [official website] Navi Pillay [official profile] welcomed the decision [statement; video] to close the prison, expressing hope that it would be closed soon and that the trials of detainees would take place in ordinary courts rather than in military commissions, which she said should be disbanded. Pillay called for accountability for those who controlled centers like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, and for compensation for those detainees found to be innocent. UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment Manfred Nowak [official website] similarly welcomed the news as a sign of goodwill, but once again alluded [JURIST report] to the administration's obligation to do justice by prosecuting the parties responsible for detainee abuses, and said freed inmates should be allowed to sue the US if they suffered harm. The European Union (EU) Czech Presidency [official website] issued a statement [text] welcoming Obama's order as a gesture of "great symbolic and practical significance [that] could facilitate strengthening transatlantic counter-terrorism and security cooperation, based on the respect of international law and human rights." In Cuba, Foreign Minister Felipe Roque [official profile, in Spanish] also welcomed the news, but called for the US to completely close the military base and return the land to Cuban sovereignty. President Hamid Karzai [official website] of Afghanistan said closing Guantanamo that it would help build international support in combating terrorism.

Obama's order directed that the military prison be closed "as soon as practicable, and no later than 1 year from the date of this order." The order also instructed Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to immediately halt military commission [DOD materials; JURIST news archive] proceedings pending a comprehensive review of all Guantanamo detentions under the supervision of the Attorney General. The order did not specify where detainees would go upon release, but it did call for diplomatic efforts with foreign states in order to facilitate the closure of the facility.

[JURIST] Admiral Dennis Blair, nominated [press release, JURIST report] by US President Barack Obama [official profile] for Director of National Intelligence, on Thursday stressed his respect for civil liberties and lawfulness in intelligence investigations during testimony [text, PDF] before the Senate Intelligence Committee [official website] in anticipation of his expected appointment. Blair addressed the treatment of detainees by stating his opposition to the use of torture and agreement with Obama's order to close [JURIST report] the Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detention facility. Blair said that he planned to:

carry out the mission of the Intelligence Community in a manner consistent with our Nation’s values, consistent with our Constitution and consistent with the rule of law. The intelligence agencies of the United States must respect the privacy and civil liberties of the American people, and they must adhere to the rule of law.

[JURIST] The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugolavia (ICTY) [official website; JURIST news archive] on Wednesday charged [text, PDF; press release] Volislav Seselj [ICTY materials; JURIST news archive] with contempt of court after it was alleged that Seselj authored a book revealing pertinent information about several key witnesses. The book is believed to have been published after a protective order was placed by the court [UN News Centre report] to keep the identity of the witnesses a secret. The book contains such information as the names of the witnesses, the names of their wives and children, and their addresses. The charge of contempt states:

Having reviewed the material provided by the Prosecution, the Chamber has reason to believe that Vojislav Seselj, the apparent author of the book, may be in contempt of the Tribunal by virtue of the disclosure of information that might identify or lead to the identification of protected witnesses and for disclosing parts of a witness statement, in contravention of orders given by the Trial Chamber conducting the trial of Vojislav Seselj. As indicated earlier, there is evidence the book was published after the relevant orders had been made. The chamber is therefore persuaded that it should initiate proceedings against Vojislav Seselj under Rule 77(C)(iii). The material before us satisfies the Chamber that there are sufficient grounds to proceed against Vojislav Seselj for contempt pursuant to Rule 77(D)(ii).