JURIST - Paper Chase: Saturday, September 11, 2010

[JURIST] Serbia's Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor [official website] on Saturday announced charges against nine individuals for their suspected involvement in the 1998-1999 Kosovo war [BBC backgrounder; JURIST news archive]. The charges include [AP report] murder, rape, looting, destruction of property and intimidation. The nine, all former members of the Serbian paramilitary group Sakali, were arrested [JURIST report] in March and accused of the systematic murders of 41 ethnic Albanians in May 1999. In all, roughly 200 civilians residing in and around the village of Cuska are believed to have been killed by these and 15 other suspects.

In July, a Serbian appeals court upheld the convictions and sentences [JURIST report] of three members of a separate paramilitary group for the death of 14 civilians in March 1999. Several nations and international organizations have been working together to apprehend those responsible for the atrocities that occurred during the Kosovo war. EU officials arrested a suspected war criminal in Kosovo in May, a month after Swedish police arrested a Serbian man [JURIST reports] also suspected of committing war crimes in Cuska. Despite some progress, Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] marked the 10-year anniversary of the conflict's end last June by reporting that many human rights abuses that occurred during the war in Kosovo have gone uninvestigated and unpunished [JURIST report].

[JURIST] The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website] on Friday ordered [text, PDF] former Kosovo Albanian military leader Ramush Haradinaj [ICTY materials, PDF; JURIST news archive] to remain in custody while awaiting a new trial. The court determined that granting Haradinaj a provisional release would lead to increased media exposure that would "add to the already threatening atmosphere for witnesses." Though stating that Haradinaj himself was unlikely to pose a threat, the court found that the increased attention may incite his supporters to engage in efforts to intimidate witnesses. The date for the retrial has not been set [AP report.]

Haradinaj, Idriz Balaj and Lahi Brahimaj are awaiting retrials after the ICTY appeals chamber overturned their acquittals [JURIST report] in July. The appeals chamber found that the integrity of the original proceedings was compromised due to the trial chamber's "[failure] to take sufficient steps to counter the witness intimidation that permeated the trial." Last year, the appeals chamber affirmed the conviction of Bajrush Morina [JURIST report] for interfering with a witness during the trial. In May 2008, ICTY Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz [official profile] filed an appeal against the acquittals [JURIST report]. Brammertz asked that the case be retried before a different chamber of the tribunal, arguing that prosecution was not allowed the to present enough witnesses. Haradinaj was charged with 37 counts of war crimes, including murder, persecution and rape, but the ICTY acquitted him of all charges [JURIST reports] in April 2008 citing a lack of evidence. Haradinaj was a senior commander in the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) [GlobalSecurity backgrounder], the ethnic Albanian guerrilla force that opposed Slobodan Milosevic [JURIST news archive] during the 1998-1999 Kosovo war [BBC backgrounder; JURIST news archive].

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] on Friday upheld [opinion, PDF] a jury verdict clearing Chevron [corporate website] of wrongdoing in the 1998 deaths of two protesters occupying a Nigerian oil platform operated by the company. Protesters Arolika Irowarinun and Bola Oyinbo, were killed in May 1998 on Parabe Oil Platform and several others were injured when Nigerian government security forces, called in by Chevron Nigeria Limited, a subsidiary of Chevron, opened fire on the protesters. The families of Irowarinun and Oyinbo, as well as several injured protesters, subsequently filed a lawsuit under the Alien Torts Act [text], and Nigerian and California law in 1999 in the US District Court for the Northern District Court of California [official website] against three California-based companies owned by Chevron. During the trial, much controversy centered around whether the protests were violent and if Nigerian forces were acting in self-defense when they shot at the protesters. The jury found that Chevron was not liable for the deaths, and, on Friday, the appellate court upheld that decision. The appellate court ruled that there were no errors in jury instructions given by the trial court, the trial court properly dismissed the Alien Tort Act claims for wrongful death and survival and the Torture Victims Protection Act [text] does not apply to corporations.

In November 2007, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) [official website] agreed to a $30 million settlement [JURIST report] of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act charges against Chevron in connection with the oil company's alleged involvement in a scheme to exchange illegal payments to Iraqi officials under the now-defunct UN Oil-for-Food program [official website; JURIST news archive]. In August 2005, Unocal shareholders approved [JURIST report] a Chevron takeover. The approval of the nearly $18 billion purchase came after months of negotiations and contentious competition [JURIST report] from China National Offshore Oil Company Ltd. (CNOOC) [official website], an oil company connected to the Chinese government trying to secure resources for China's booming economy.