[JURIST] US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] Justice John Paul Stevens on Thursday denied an application for stay of deportation [text, PDF] filed by accused Nazi prison guard John Demjanjuk [NNDB profile; JURIST news archive]. Demjanjuk faces deportation to Germany, where in March a Munich district court charged [JURIST report] him with 29,000 counts of accessory to murder for his alleged involvement at the Sobibor [Death Camps backgrounder] concentration camp. Demjanjuk could choose to file an application with another justice [Plain Dealer report]. Also Thursday, lawyers for Demjanjuk said that he has appealed [AP report] a Wednesday ruling [JURIST report] by a Berlin court that rejected a suit seeking to block his deportation.

Demjanjuk has fought a lengthy legal battle over his alleged involvement with Nazi death camps during World War II. In 2008, the US Supreme Court denied certiorari in Demjanjuk v. Mukasey [order, PDF; JURIST report], ending the appeals process for his deportation order. Demjanjuk was appealing a 2005 ruling [JURIST report] by then-US Chief Immigration Judge Michael Creppy which ordered his deportation. Demjanjuk had previously lost his appeal to the BIA. In 1988, Demjanjuk was convicted and sentenced to death by an Israeli court which found that he was a notorious guard from Treblinka nicknamed "Ivan the Terrible." The sentence was vacated by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1993, and Demjanjuk returned to the US.

[JURIST] The security company known formerly as Blackwater Worldwide [corporate website; JURIST news archive] on Thursday concluded its operations in Baghdad as its contract to protect American diplomats in Iraq ended. A spokesperson from the US Embassy in Iraq [official website] said that the company, nos called XE [corporate website], will remain in southern Iraq [AP report] until the summer. Virgina-based Triple Canopy [corporate website] will take over [CNN report] operations. The US State Department [official website] announced in February that the Blackwater contract would not be renewed [JURIST report] when it expired in May. The decision not to renew the contract was made after the Iraqi government invoked its rights under the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) [full text; CFR materials] by refusing to renew [JURIST report] Blackwater's operating license.

The decision by the Iraqi government was motivated in part by the alleged killing of 17 civilians by Blackwater guards [JURIST report] in September 2007. In January, five Blackwater guards pleaded not guilty [JURIST report] to manslaughter, attempted manslaughter, and weapons charges. A sixth guard pleaded guilty [text, PDF] to charges of voluntary manslaughter and attempt to commit manslaughter for his role in the same incident. In November, a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigation into the incident concluded that the shootings were unjustified [JURIST report].

[JURIST] The French government on Wednesday confirmed that it will accept Algerian Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainee Lakhdar Boumediene [BBC profile] after his release from the detention center. Boumediene was the named plaintiff in the US Supreme Court case Boumediene v. Bush [opinion, PDF; JURIST report], in which the Court held that Guantanamo detainees could challenge their imprisonment in federal court through the use of habeas corpus motions. The French agreement [Reuters report] to take in Boumediene comes after French President Nicholas Sarkozy [official profile] told US President Barack Obama [official profile] at an April meeting that the country would accept one Guantanamo prisoner as part of a symbolic measure [JURIST report] to assist in the closing of the facility. The framework for the agreement was established at the first meeting between the two heads of state, at which Sarkozy congratulated Obama on his January decision to order the closure of Guantanamo [executive order; JURIST report].

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 did not specify where detainees would go upon release, but did call for diplomatic efforts with foreign states in order to facilitate the closure of the facility. Earlier this week, a spokesperson for the German Interior Ministry [official website, in German] said that the US has asked Germany to take in up to 10 detainees [JURIST report]. In April, UK Minister of Justice Jack Straw reiterated his country's willingness to accept Guantanamo detainees [JURIST report] in order to speed the closure of the facility. In March, top officials from the Obama administration met with leaders from the European Union (EU) [official website; JURIST news archive] to discuss plans to transfer [JURIST report] Guantanamo Bay detainees to European countries. Individual member states have also indicated their openness to accepting detainees, including Lithuania, Ireland, and Portugal [JURIST reports]. Other states have expressed reservations about accepting detainees, including Poland and Spain, while Italy [JURIST reports] and the Netherlands [AFP report] have said they will not accept detainees.

[JURIST] The UK Home Office [official website] on Thursday released new proposals [press release] for a controversial DNA database [BBC backgrounder; JURIST news archive] that would remove the DNA information of innocent people. The Home Office said that DNA information could still remain in the database [official website] for six to 12 years in cases of "serious violent or sexual crimes." The new proposals are in response to a December ruling [judgment text] by the European Court of Human Rights [official website] that the British practice of keeping the fingerprints and DNA profiles of people arrested but not convicted of crimes was against privacy rights [JURIST report] and should not continue. UK Home Secretary Jacqui Smith [official profile] said:

It is crucial that we do everything we can to protect the public by preventing crime and bringing offenders to justice. The DNA database plays a vital role in helping us do that and will help ensure that a great many criminals are behind bars where they belong. ...

We will ensure that the most serious offenders are added to the database no matter when or where they were convicted. We also know that the database has provided matches for a significant number of serious crimes as well as providing thousands of matches for less serious crimes that cause great concern to victims, such as burglary, which is why we are proposing to keep some profiles for six years.

[JURIST] The Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic [official website] voted Wednesday to approve the European Union (EU) reform treaty, also known as the Lisbon Treaty [EU materials; text], sending the document to Czech President Vaclav Klaus [official website] for ratification. If the treaty is ratified, Ireland will be the only remaining EU country not to have ratified it. Klaus has indicated that he will not approve the ratification [AFP report], saying [statement] that the Czech senators "turned their back on the long-term interests of the Czech Republic." Klaus also said that he would wait [Prague Post report] to sign the Senate approval until after the country's Constitutional Court rules on the treaty and the results are known from the second round of an Irish referendum on ratification of the Lisbon Treaty.

In March, the resignation of then-prime minister Mirek Topolanek [official website; JURIST news archive] cast doubt on the future of Lisbon Treaty ratification in the Czech Republic. The Czech Republic's Chamber of Deputies [official website], or lower house of parliament, in February approved [press release; JURIST report] the Lisbon Treaty. Beyond challenges in the Czech Republic, the treaty still must pass a referendum in Ireland where voters had earlier rejected [JURIST reports] the treaty in a June 2008 referendum, prompting Polish President Lech Kaczynski [official website] to refuse [JURIST report] to sign, calling it "pointless." In November, Sweden became the 24th EU state to ratify the charter [JURIST report]. In 2005, a proposed European constitution [JURIST news archive] failed when voters in France and the Netherlands [JURIST reports] rejected the proposal in national referenda.

[JURIST] US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] investigators have concluded that three former Bush administration lawyers responsible for authoring controversial CIA interrogation memos [JURIST news archive] should not face criminal prosecutions, according to Wednesday media reports. A draft report from the investigation has concluded that while no criminal prosecution should be conducted, professional sanctions [AP report] could be appropriate. The report suggests that two Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) [official website] lawyers, John Yoo and Jay Bybee [JURIST news archives], should be subject to some disciplinary action. The report also concludes that the third lawyer, Steven Bradbury [JURIST news archive] did not engage in behavior that warrants disciplinary action.

The recent release of four CIA interrogation memos [JURIST report] has renewed calls for the criminal prosecution of the memos' authors. Last week, chairman of the US Senate Judiciary Committee [official website] Patrick Leahy (D-VT) [official profile] invited [press release and letter; JURIST report] Bybee to testify before the committee. Leahy wants Bybee to explain apparently contradictory statements in which Bybee expressed regret [Washington Post report] for signing the memos and then defended [NYT report] his actions. Last month, UN special rapporteur on torture Manfred Nowak [official profile, DOC] said that the US must prosecute [JURIST report] DOJ lawyers who drafted the memos. US President Barack Obama has said that he would not rule out the possibility of prosecuting [transcript; JURIST report] lawyers responsible for authoring the memos. Obama had previously said that he would not pursue prosecutions of CIA interrogators [statement], a pledge which drew sharp international criticism [JURIST report].

[JURIST] London High Court judges Lord Justice Thomas and Mr. Justice Lloyd Jones agreed Wednesday to reconsider a February decision [JURIST report] to redact information from a ruling about former Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainee Binyam Mohamed [Reprieve profile; JURIST news archive]. Several media groups had challenged the decision [AP report] not to publicize information redacted from an August 2008 ruling [JURIST report] that the UK Foreign Office must turn over evidence essential to Mohamed's defense. The groups argued that the judges' decision was based on comments from the previous administration of former US president George W. Bush, and not on discussions with the Obama administration. Mohamed's lawyers have also encouraged the judges to reconsider their decision [BBC report], arguing that the redacted information contains important evidence about Mohamed's treatment in custody. An Obama administration official reportedly sent a letter to the UK government that was shared with the judges, arguing that publicizing the redacted information could still harm national security interests of both the US and the UK.

Mohamed was returned to the UK [JURIST report] in February after being held for nearly seven years. Mohamed was arrested and sent to Guantanamo Bay in 2004 on suspicion of war crimes in connection with his alleged involvement with al Qaeda attacks on the US. The charges against him were dismissed [JURIST report] last October. Mohamed asserts that after he was arrested in Pakistan and turned over to US officials, he was then transferred to Moroccan agents who tortured him.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Wednesday granted a Department of Justice (DOJ) [official websites] request to drop its appeal in the case of Iraq war objector 1st Lt. Ehren Watada [advocacy website; JURIST news archive]. In October, a federal judge ruled [order, PDF] that Watada could not face a second court-martial [JURIST report] on all charges for which he already faced court-martial. The judge had granted an injunction [JURIST report] against the second court-martial in November 2007 in order to resolve the double jeopardy dispute. The controversy over Watada's second court-martial concerns the declaration of a mistrial [JURIST report] in the original proceedings after the military judge rejected a Stipulation of Fact by Watada and the government, conceding that Watada was guilty of the charge of Missing Movement when he missed a flight that would have flown him to his post in Iraq. Watada could still face a court-martial for two other counts [Seattle Times report] of conduct unbecoming an officer that were not dismissed by the federal court.

The district court had already stayed court-martial proceedings, scheduled to begin in October 2007, and later extended the stay, after Watada asked [JURIST reports] the US District Court for the Western District of Washington for relief while an appeal was pending with the US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces [official websites]. Watada, a Honolulu native who is the first commissioned officer in the US military to publicly refuse deployment to Iraq, has refused to be classified as a conscientious objector because he does not object to war in general, just to the "illegal" war in Iraq. He offered to serve in Afghanistan, but the US Army refused. His vocal protests and participation in rallies by Veterans for Peace and Courage to Resist [advocacy websites] led to the charges of conduct unbecoming an officer and the original charge of contempt toward officials.