[JURIST] Former Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] on Friday staged another hunger strike to protest corruption charges he faces, a Taiwanese official at the detention center where Chen is being held said Sunday. Chen was indicted on charges of embezzlement, receiving bribes, forgery, and money laundering in December, and staged an earlier hunger strike to protest the allegations when he was first detained [JURIST reports] in November. Chen has maintained that the charges against him are politically motivated, and in January unsuccessfully [JURIST report] appealed his pretrial detention. He is next scheduled to appear in court [Taipei Times report] on Tuesday.

Earlier this month, Chen's wife, Wu Shu-Chen, pleaded guilty to charges [JURIST report] of money-laundering and forgery, but denied charges that she embezzled from the presidential state affairs fund. Chen's sister-in-law has also pleaded guilty [JURIST report] to charges that she had forged documents and transferred money to bank accounts upon orders from Chen and Wu. In September 2008, Chen was cleared [JURIST report] of separate defamation charges.

[JURIST] Egypt on Sunday called for the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] to delay issuing an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] for a least a year, in order to allow peace talks between the Sudanese government and Darfur rebels to continue. A spokesman for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak [official website] said that the call came out of Sunday talks between Bashir and Mubarak, and that Egypt has already been urging other leaders to help postpone or prevent the warrant's issuance. ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo [official profile] has long sought an arrest warrant [JURIST report] for Bashir on charges of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, and the ICC is expected to decide soon whether or not to issue the warrant.

Earlier this month, the ICC announced that it had not issued an arrest warrant [press release; JURIST report] Bashir, despite a report [NYT report] that it had. UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon has made statements [press conference transcript, JURIST report] emphasizing the independent nature of the ICC as a judiciary organization, and stressing that Bashir should "fully cooperate with whatever decisions the ICC makes." Sudan and the African Union [JURIST reports] have both asked the UN Security Council to delay war crime charges against Bashir for one year by invoking Article 16 of the Rome Statute [text], citing fears that an arrest warrant would disrupt the Sudanese peace process.

[JURIST] US Army Sgt. Michael Leahy Jr. [JURIST news archive] was convicted Friday on charges [JURIST report] stemming from the 2007 deaths of four Iraqi detainees, and was given a life sentence at a court-martial at a US military base in Germany. Leahy will have a possibility of parole after being dishonorably discharged, having his rank reduced to private, and forfeiting his pay. The medic from Illinois [Chicago Tribune report] had admitted to shooting one of the prisoners but pleaded not guilty to charges of premeditated murder, conspiracy to commit premeditated murder, and obstruction of justice, claiming his lack of sleep and long-term presence in a war zone had made him unable to reason properly.

On Tuesday, a military judge ruled [JURIST report] that Staff Sgt. Jess Cunningham, who had been accused as a co-conspirator before his charges were dropped, would be allowed to testify against Leahy. Leahy was among six members of the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry [unit website] accused in killings that took place between March 10 and April 16, 2007. The prisoners were allegedly shot in the head while bound and blindfolded before being dumped in a canal. Fellow unit members Spc. Belmor Ramon and Spc. Steven Ribordy pleaded guilty to conspiracy and accessory to murder [JURIST reports], respectively, in connection with the incident.

[JURIST] The Iraqi government has reopened the prison formerly called Abu Ghraib [CBC backgrounder; JURIST news archive], promising to operate the prison by international standards and allow inspections by humanitarian groups. In a tour for members of the media Saturday, officials said they hoped to temper the strong feelings many Iraqis hold toward the prison with a new name, Baghdad Central Prison, and renovations [NYT report] including fresh paint, exercise equipment, and a library. The facility currently holds 300 prisoners, but officials expect to reach a capacity more than 12,000 once improvements are complete.

The prison was the site of torture and executions under Saddam Hussein [JURIST news archive] and gained further notoriety due to detainee abuse by American soldiers. Officials announced [JURIST report] the prison's reopening in January. In December, the Senate Armed Services Committee [official website] reported [text, PDF] that senior US officials were responsible [JURIST report] for the use of abusive interrogation techniques against detainees held in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. The bipartisan report 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 [JURIST news archive] and other top officials. The prison was returned to the Iraqi government [JURIST report] in late 2006.