[JURIST] Former US soldier Steven Green [JURIST news archive] was sentenced Friday to five consecutive life terms in prison for the rape and murder of an Iraqi teenage girl [JURIST news archive] and the murder of her family in Mahmudiya. A federal jury in the US District Court for the Western District of Kentucky [official website], which convicted [JURIST report] Green in May, failed to reach a unanimous decision on whether Green should get the death penalty, automatically giving him a life sentence [JURIST report] that was confirmed Friday. Prosecutors had sought the death penalty [JURIST report], but Green's defense maintained that he did not deserve capital punishment due to the highly stressful combat situation he was in and a lack of sufficient leadership.

Green faced a civilian jury after being discharged from the military for a psychiatric disorder before the charges were brought. He was one of six soldiers [JURIST report] charged with involvement in the rape and murders. Three other soldiers pleaded guilty in court-martial proceedings and a fourth was convicted. Spc. James Barker and Sgt. Paul Cortez were sentenced to 90 and 100 years respectively, while Pfc. Bryan Howard [JURIST reports], who stayed at the checkpoint and had prior knowledge of the plans, was sentenced to 27 months in jail. The fourth, Pfc. Jesse Spielman [JURIST report], was convicted by a military jury and sentenced to 110 years. Prosecutors dropped charges of dereliction of duty against the sixth member, Sgt. Anthony Yribe, who was other than honorably discharged.

[JURIST] Lawyers for Myanmar opposition pro-democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] said Friday that the Divisional Court in Rangoon has agreed to hear an appeal of her recent conviction [JURIST report] for violating state security laws. Suu Kyi was sentenced to an additional 18 months of house for allowing American John Yettaw to stay in her home after he swam across a lake to get there. Yettaw, who was sentenced to seven years in prison with four years of hard labor, was released [JURIST report] last month after negotiations with US Senator Jim Webb (D-VA). The court is scheduled to hear Suu Kyi's appeal, which was filed Thursday, on September 18.

Suu Kyi's conviction was condemned [BBC report] by many world leaders. The European Union (EU) [official website] issued a statement [press release] saying, "[t]he proceedings against Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, on charges which were brought twenty years after she was first wrongfully arrested, have been in breach of national and international law. The EU urges the authorities to immediately and unconditionally release her." US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton [official profile] said [press release], "she should not have been tried and she should not have been convicted. We continue to call for her release from continuing house arrest." Last month, the Council of the European Union [official website] announced sanctions [JURIST report] against members of the Myanmar judiciary responsible for the verdict. Suu Kyi has spent 14 of the last 20 years in detention.

[JURIST] A Canadian court on Thursday sentenced Saad Khalid to 14 years in prison for his involvement in plotting to attack targets in Toronto, Canada [JURIST report]. Khalid, one of the so-called "Toronto 18" [Toronto Star backgrounder; advocacy website], was credited with seven years [Toronto Star report] for time served. Khalid pleaded guilty in May to one count of participating in a militant plot with the intention of causing an explosion. He had argued that he was not the leader of the group. The court accepted that argument but still found that he had a fairly high degree of responsibility. Khalid's lawyer said his client is content with the outcome and has no plans to appeal [CBC report] the sentence.

The "Toronto 18," arrested in 2006, are accused of planning a series of violent attacks on civilians, public officials, and government buildings. Although little information was released about the minors arrested among the Toronto 18, the charges eventually laid against the 12 adult males included participating in a terrorist group, receiving training from a terrorist group, training terrorists, and importing weapons and ammunition for terrorism. In May, one of the group's members, the first person convicted under Canada's post-9/11 terrorism law was sentenced to 36 months [JURIST reports] in prison and released by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice [official website] in consideration of the time he had already served.

[JURIST] The US Department of the Treasury [official website] on Thursday lifted travel restrictions and restrictions on money transfers [press release] between Cuban-Americans and their families in Cuba. The department also authorized US telecommunications companies work within Cuba to facilitate communication between families split between the two countries. The move was championed by Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) [official website], who said [press release] Thursday:

Our previous policy hurt family farmers and restricted their ability to get their products to the Cuban marketplace, and I'm pleased to see that these new regulations recognize the importance of my legislation when it comes to giving our nation's agricultural producers access to the Cuban marketplace.

This change will make it easier for our producers to sell their goods to Cuba, and it makes good economic sense for family farmers in North Dakota and across the country.

[JURIST] A federal judicial panel on Thursday denied [opinion, PDF] California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's request to stay an order [text, PDF] to reduce the prison population in the state. The request stemmed from an August ruling mandating that California reduce its prison population [JURIST report] by nearly 43,000 inmates in response to a lawsuit by two inmates alleging that overcrowding in California prisons reduces access to physical and mental health care and amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. In its order Thursday, the court found that it has:

been more than patient with the state and its officials. Throughout the proceedings, we have had considerable difficulty in determining their positions, in view of their conflicting representations before this and other official bodies. We are persuaded that it is not in the best interests of all concerned to act as swiftly as possible. Further delays and obstruction will not well serve the people of the state, and will not be tolerated by this court.

[JURIST] A spokesperson for the department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) [official website] said Thursday that the Canadian government will appeal a controversial decision by the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) [official website] to grant asylum to a white South African man who claims he faced persecution in his homeland because of race. The ruling was issued [Times report] last week in the case of Brandon Huntley who came to Canada in 2006 as a carnival worker and then stayed illegally before filing an asylum claim. Huntley claimed [Globe and Mail report] that he was the victim of attempted robberies and racial slurs and that he could not get a job because of his race. The Federal Court will decide whether to hear the case within a month, and will then hold a hearing [Reuters report] about three months later if the case is accepted.

The IRB's decision sparked outrage in South Africa where race is still an extremely sensitive issue, 15 years after the end of apartheid. Earlier this week, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) [party website] condemned [press release] the decision as "racist." The South African Institute of Race Relations [advocacy website] said [press release, PDF] that it "has found no evidence that there is a general pattern of racial attacks on white South Africans by black South Africans. Rather ... the vast majority of the victims of violent crime are black."

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit [official website] on Thursday granted [order, PDF] a request by Microsoft Corporation [corporate website] to stay an injunction [text, PDF] that would have prevented the company from selling its popular word processing program Microsoft Word. The court ruled in a brief per curiam opinion that Microsoft had met its burden to stay the injunction. Microsoft had filed the emergency motion [text, PDF] for a stay of injunction on August 18, arguing that if the injunction were upheld, distributors of Microsoft products would be irreparably harmed. Microsoft did not release an official statement following the ruling, but a spokesperson did express satisfaction [Bloomberg report] with the result. The court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on Microsoft's appeal on September 23.

Microsoft filed its motion for an emergency stay less than one week after the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas issued the injunction [JURIST report]. The court held that Microsoft infringed a patent for XML coding held by Canadian company i4i [corporate website], which was the latest legal challenge for Microsoft. In June, a South Korean court ruled that Microsoft violated anti-trust laws [JURIST report] by packaging software with its Windows operating system. In late February, Google sought to join anti-trust litigation [JURIST report] against Microsoft in the EU, arguing that by packaging the Internet Explorer browser with the Windows operating system, Microsoft is stifling competition in the web browser market.