At sentencing, Mubarak and his family could face the death penalty. Mubarak is currently being held at a hospital [Al Arabiya report] in Tora Prison, Sharm el-Sheikh. Egypt's public prosecutor has decided not to transfer Mubarak yet, and conceded he may not be well enough to stand trial in August. Earlier this week, Mubarak was fined USD $90 million [JURIST report] for cutting off the nation's Internet access in January.

Last week, Amnesty International reported that at least 840 people were killed [JURIST report], and more than 6,000 were injured, during the Egyptian protests. Earlier this month, an Egyptian criminal court convicted [JURIST report] the country's former tourism minister, Zoheir Garranah, for corruption and sentenced him to five years in prison. In April, Egyptian prosecutors charged [JURIST report] former prime minister Ahmed Nazif, former finance minister Yousef Boutros and former interior minister Habib el Adly with corruption. In March, a commission of Arab and Egyptian human rights groups accused the former president [JURIST report] and the country's police of murdering protesters during the demonstrations. The joint commission submitted their report to Egypt's top prosecutor for further investigation. The Supreme Military Council of Egypt, which assumed power after Mubarak's resignation, instructed Egypt's top prosecutor to investigate the death of protesters [RIA Novosti report] during the three weeks of demonstrations in the country.

Why is it so important for us to prosecute Ratko Mladic? The answer to this question lies in his position of power and influence during the war. It also lies in the nature and extent of the atrocities committed. Ratko Mladic was a Colonel General and Commander of the Main Staff of the Bosnian Serb Army. He was the most powerful military figure in Bosnia during the war. He is charged with crimes that shocked the conscience of the international community. These crimes symbolize the brutality of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Brammertz also emphasized the importance of capturing the final at-large Serbian war criminal, Goran Hadzic [ICTY case materials]. Mladic will face the tribunal for the first time Friday at 10:00 AM [press release].

Mladic lost his final appeal in Serbia to avoid extradition [JURIST reports], and was transported to the Hague late Tuesday night. Mladic faces charges [amended indictment, PDF] of genocide and crimes against humanity, including murder, political persecution, forcible transfer and deportations, cruel treatment and the taking of peacekeepers as hostages. He is most infamous for ordering the slaughter of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the massacre of Srebrenica [JURIST news archive] during the Bosnian civil war.

President Obama and I, along with leaders across the Administration, understand how illegal drugs—including crack—ravage communities. Crack offenders—especially violent ones—should be punished. And the Justice Department will make every effort to prosecute them. However, as years of experience and study have shown, there is simply no just or logical reason why their punishments should be dramatically more severe than those of other cocaine offenders—a position that Congress overwhelmingly supported with the passage of the Fair Sentencing Act.

The Fair Sentencing Act amended existing law to reduce the current sentencing ratio from 100:1 to 18:1. Under the existing law passed in 1986, an individual possessing five grams of crack cocaine would receive a mandatory five-year prison sentence, while an individual possessing powder cocaine would need to have 100 times that amount to receive the same sentence. Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] praised [press release] the bill's passage, stating that the old law also created a racial disparity, with African Americans comprising 79.8 percent of all offenders sentenced for crack cocaine violations. In April 2008, a study released by the USSC reported that more than 3,000 prison inmates convicted of crack cocaine offenses had their sentences reduced [JURIST report] under an amendment to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines [materials]. In 2007, the USSC voted unanimously [JURIST report] to give retroactive effect to an earlier sentencing guideline amendment that reduced crack cocaine penalties.

the Court does not find good cause to exclude EPIC from the list of recipients of the cy pres funds. EPIC has demonstrated that it is a well-established and respected organization within the field of internet privacy and that it has sufficiently outlined how the cy pres funding will be used to further the interests of the class.

The lawsuit alleged that the Buzz application exposed private user data, including contact lists, to other Gmail users. Google stressed that the settlement did not mean that the company was admitting liability for the privacy breach and that the company has since resolved all privacy issues with the Buzz application. In March, the FTC settled a similar privacy lawsuit [JURIST report] against Google over charges that the Internet giant breached consumer privacy rights and was misleading during the launch of Buzz. The FTC alleges that when Google launched Buzz through its web-based email, Gmail, users were automatically enrolled without their consent and were unable to decline or leave the social network and that the Buzz privacy controls were confusing. Google has recently faced a number of allegations of violating privacy laws, both in the US and abroad. In November, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) [official website] confirmed that it is investigating [JURIST report] Google to determine if it violated communications laws when its Street View [JURIST news archive] vehicles inadvertently collected private user data, including passwords and URLs, over WiFi networks. In October, the FTC ended an inquiry [JURIST report] into the company's data collection through Street View cars after Google assured the FTC that it did not use any of the collected data and announced that it was committed to compliance with privacy laws [text], instituting new training on privacy principles and appointing a new director of privacy.

Parliament's vote came just two days after Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, endorsed Ahmadinejad [LAT report] and pleaded for he and the parliament to reconcile. Ahmadinejad, Khamenei and the parliament have been at odds for the past few months. It is reported [LAT report] that the current move to become "caretaker" of the ministry of oil is in retribution for Khamenei overruling Ahmadinejad's decision to fire his chief intelligence officer. Although the Guardian Council, a group of clerics and jurists appointed by Khamenei and the parliament, already ruled that Khamenei could not serve as caretaker and president. He ignored their ruling. The president is free to appoint caretakers for ministers, but the caretaker may only stay in office for three months without parliamentary approval.

Last month, a Bahrain court unanimously upheld death sentences [JURIST report] for two men convicted of killing police officers during anti-government protests in March. The court reduced the death sentences [JURIST report] of two others to life in prison. The four men were tried in a special court under the emergency laws, during the Shiite-led protests in Bahrain. The special court and other measures implemented under emergency law have been heavily criticized by various human rights groups. Nabeel Rajab, leader of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights [advocacy website] criticized the ruling, expressing his concern that the cases are politically motivated and an attempt for the government to stop protests. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay [official profile] has urged the government of Bahrain to release detained activists [JURIST report] and exercise restraint against protesters.

These are matters of the greatest concern to the Government of Kenya not just because of the significance of cooperation in domestic investigations and proceedings other than those involving the six Suspects. Whether the Prosecutor should, and will, cooperate with the Government of Kenya is critical to the issue of the admissibility of the two cases presently before the ICC that will be further considered on appeal and/or at some later stage if and when there is any further application by any party to return jurisdiction to Kenya. Only by being allowed to reply to the Prosecutor's grave, but un-evidenced, allegations can the Government of Kenya ensure there is a record before the court of what its present response to those allegations may be, something of great potential importance for the deliberations of the Appeals Chamber and/or the Pre-Trial or Trial Chamber(s) at a later stage.

The Ocampo Six include several high-ranking members of Kenya's government, the head of operations at Kass FM [official website] in Nairobi and the son of Kenya's first president, Jomo Kenyatta [Africa Within backgrounder]. Three of the men are members of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) [party website], and the other three are members of the opposing Party for National Unity (PNU). The ODM suspects are charged with fomenting violence against PNU members following the 2007 elections because they believed the election of Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki [official profile] to be rigged. In response, the PNU suspects are charged with the conspiring with the Mungiki criminal organization [Safer Access backgrounder, PDF] to attack members of the ODM party. The ICC summoned the suspects [JURIST report] after determining they would not be charged in Kenya for the alleged crimes. In April, Kenya requested that the ICC dismiss the case [JURIST report], arguing that the government is capable of prosecuting the six men domestically. Lawyers for the Ocampo Six called for the timely release of evidence [JURIST report] against their clients that month as well.

Last month, HRW urged Syria to lift the siege [JURIST report] on the town of Daraa and accused Syrian authorities of violating international law in attempting to quell protesters. Movement in and out of Daraa came to a halt almost in April when the Syrian army surrounded the city, cutting electricity, phone lines and Internet services as well as supplies such as food and medicine. In late April, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) [official website], in an emergency special session, publicly condemned the violence used by Syrian authorities [JURIST report] against peaceful protesters. Earlier that month, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay [official profile] called for Syria to immediately halt the killings [JURIST report] and violence against civilian protesters in response to the fatal shootings of peaceful anti-government protesters. Also in April, Assad ended the country's 48-year-old state of emergency [JURIST report], but protests have continued.

In the past decade, the US has made significant strides in prosecuting those involved in the El Salvadoran civil war. In April, the Obama administration charged [JURIST report] General Eugenio Vides Casanova, former defense minister of El Salvador, for human rights crimes committed during the civil war while he served as the country's top military officer. The US was also seeking to deport [La Pagina report, in Spanish] Vides, who retired in Florida after completing his six-year term as defense minister. In 2006, US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit [official website] upheld a $55 million verdict [JURIST report] against Vides and his co-defendant Jose Guillermo Garcia for allowing torture and other human rights violations during the war. In 2005, a US federal court reached a verdict against Nicolas Carranza, top commander of El Salvador's security forces during the civil war, for $2 million in compensatory damages [JURIST report]. The case was brought by five Salvadoran citizens who alleged torture or had family killed by Carranza's soldier during the war. In 2000, however, the US lost the battle to seek justice for the murders of four American churchwomen [NYT report] during the civil war when both Vides and Garcia were acquitted. The ruling was grounded in the doctrine that the generals, although responsible for their soldiers, may not have had complete effective power to reign in the abuses of their troops.

Since 1992, at least 32 journalists have been murdered in Russia—11 since 2005, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists [advocacy website]. Last month, during a speech [text] at a legal forum in St. Petersburg, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev [official profile; JURIST news archive] expressed the need for Russia to improve its legal system and make a better commitment to the rule of law [JURIST report]. In December 2008, Medvedev's first year in office, he proposed that Russian courts become more transparent in order to restore faith in the justice system and prevent people from turning to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) [official website], for which Russia is a source of more applications than any other country. Earlier, in June 2008, Medvedev said he was committed to improving Russia's human rights record and enforcing the rule of law, reiterating pledges he made at his May inauguration [JURIST reports]. Medvedev, himself a lawyer by training, promised top legal officials he would tackle corruption and intimidation in the Russian judicial system [JURIST report], calling for reforms to better train and support judges.