JURIST - Paper Chase: Friday, January 20, 2012

[JURIST] Yemeni officials on Thursday amended a law that would have given complete immunity to President Ali Abdullah Saleh [official website, in Arabic; JURIST news archive] and all of his associates, limiting it to politically motivated crimes for Saleh's aides. The original draft [text, in Arabic] of the law, which gave full immunity to Saleh and all civil, military and security agents who worked under him, was passed by the Council of Ministers [JURIST report] almost two weeks ago. Under the amended law, Saleh would maintain complete immunity for crimes committed during his regime, but his associates would only have limited immunity. Discussion of the amended law in Yemen's parliament is scheduled for Saturday.

Voting on the original bill was postponed for the third time [Yemen Times report] Wednesday. One of the reasons for the delays was opposition to the clause granting blanket immunity for government officials who worked under Saleh. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay opposes immunity [JURIST report] for Saleh and his officials, saying the victims deserve justice and will not get it if the law is passed. Pillay advocated for an investigation [JURIST report] of Saleh and his administration in early December for alleged human rights violations. Saleh agreed to step down [JURIST report from his office in April amidst pressure from protesters, and the immunity law was a condition of his promise.

[JURIST] Haitian Judge Ezekiel Vaval convicted eight police officers on Thursday for their participation in the shooting and killing of at least 10 prisoners after the January 2010 earthquake [JURIST news archive]. The judge also found that six other police officers were innocent. One of the convicted officers fled the country before the trial and was convicted in absentia. The officers were accused of murder, attempted murder and other crimes during a prison riot in Les Cayes. The decision was based on numerous witness testimonials. The sentences range from two to 13 years of hard labor. Twenty-one other officials fled before the trial, and the court plans to try those officials in absentia in the near future. Haiti has been criticized [text] in the past for its failure to investigate and convict officials for human rights violations.

The trial was initiated after a spokesperson for the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti [official website] announced [JURIST report] in 2010 that it launched an investigation into the shootings. Haiti faced difficulty in maintaining [JURIST report] law and order during the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake. Numerous prison inmates of the main prison in the capital Port-au-Prince escaped [JURIST report] when it collapsed during the earthquake.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website] ruled Friday rejected [opinion, PDF] Texas's interim redistricting maps. The emergency appeal [JURIST report] challenged an interim map drawn up by the US District Court for the Western District of Texas while a separate map drawn up by the state legislature is currently being challenged in the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official websites] for compliance with the Voting Rights Act (VRA) [Cornell LII backgrounder]. In a per curiam opinion, the court rejected the interim maps, finding that, "it is unclear whether the District Court for the Western District of Texas followed the appropriate standards." Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a separate concurrence in which he argued that Section 5 of the VRA, which requires preclearance of the redistricting plan, is unconstitutional. Also Friday, the court set aside [order, PDF] a lower court ruling [JURIST report] that declared West Virginia's redistricting plan unconstitutional until the court can rule on the matter.

According to the 2010 census, Texas' population grew by 4.3 million, which gave it four more seats in the US House of Representatives. The Republican-controlled state legislature redrew the congressional districts in a way that challengers claim would make it more likely for Republicans to win those new seats. The plan must be approved by either the Justice Department or a federal court under Section 5 of the VRA, and the Obama administration has objected to the plan. In the meantime, the federal court in Texas drew an "interim map" for use in the 2012 election. That is the map that is currently being challenged before the Supreme Court. The Obama administration urged the Supreme Court to reject the interim maps, and the court heard arguments [JURIST reports] in the case last week.

[JURIST] The Ingolstadt Prosecutor's Office [official website, in German] filed a motion on Thursday to jail Klaas Faber, a Dutch native who fled to Germany after being convicted in the Netherlands in 1947 of Nazi war crimes. He is one of the last on the Simon Wiesenthal Center [advocacy website] Most Wanted list [BBC backgrounder] of surviving Nazi suspects who escaped punishment. Faber, 90, was accused of having participated in 22 murders and aiding the Nazis during their occupation of the Netherlands. Faber and his brother, Piet, were sentenced to death by a Dutch court, and Piet was executed while Klaas' sentence was reduced to life imprisonment. In 1952, he escaped the Netherlands and fled to Germany. Since then, the Netherlands has sought his extradition without success. It is unclear when the Ingolstadt district court will rule on the matter.

Germany reopened investigations into former Nazi death camp guards in October, which stemmed from the conviction of John Demjanjuk [JURIST reports], a former guard at a camp in Poland who was deported to Germany to stand trial for his alleged Nazi crimes. Nazi prosecution is still ongoing, despite the ages of the accused. Alleged Nazi Sandor Kepiro died while he awaited an appeal [JURIST report] on his acquittal on war crimes charges. Another convicted Nazi commander, Josef Scheungraber, is likely not able to serve [JURIST report] his life sentence due to his mental health issues.

[JURIST] US officials on Wednesday announced charges [text] against seven individuals purportedly involved in a $62 million insider trading scheme. The individuals, who worked for five different investment institutions, are accused of earning illegal profits on the basis of insider information regarding publicly traded companies, including Dell Inc. and NVIDIA. US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara [official profile] described the nature of the illegal conduct and expressed his intent to curb insider trading [press release, PDF]:

The charges unsealed today allege a corrupt circle of friends who formed a criminal club whose purpose was profit and whose members regularly bartered lucrative inside information so their respective funds could illegally profit. And profit they allegedly did—to the tune of more than $61 million on illegal trades of a single stock—much of it coming in a $53 million short trade. Here, The Big Short was The Big Illegal Short. We have demonstrated through our prosecutions that insider trading is rampant and has its own social network, a network we intend to dismantle. We will be unrelenting in our pursuit of those who think they are above the law.

Janice Fedarcyk [official profile], Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Office of the FBI [official website] also condemned the alleged insider trading conspiracy [press release]. Three of the seven have already pleaded guilty to counts of securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud and are cooperating with the government. The men face potential penalties of five to 25 in prison and fines of $250,000 to $5 million.

US prosecutors and the FBI have targeted insider trading in the investment industry in recent years. Raj Rajaratnam, co-founder of the Galleon Group, was convicted of 14 counts of insider trading [JURIST report] in May and sentenced to 11 years in federal prison [JURIST report] in one of the largest hedge fund insider trading cases in US history. Several other defendants have pleaded guilty in connection with the case. Former hedge fund consultant Danielle Chiesi pleaded guilty [JURIST report] in January. Former IBM senior vice president Robert Moffat was sentenced to six months in prison in September 2010 and ordered him to pay a $50,000 fine for his role in the scheme after pleading guilty [JURIST reports] in March 2010. Former Intel Capital executive Rajiv Goel pleaded guilty [JURIST report] to insider trading charges in February 2010. Rajaratnam, Chiesi, Goel and Moffat were arrested in October 2009 and charged [complaint, PDF] along with two other individuals and two business entities with insider trading. The complaint alleged that the individuals provided Galleon Group and another hedge fund with material nonpublic information about several corporations upon which the funds traded, generating $25 million in illicit gain. Rajaratnam and Chiesi originally pleaded not guilty [JURIST report] in December 2009 after being indicted for insider trading.