[JURIST] Victorious Palestinian presidential candidate Mahmoud Abbas pledged to supporters in Ramallah late Sunday night that he would work towards securing the release of all Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. Israeli officials, for their part, have already indicated they will free the Palestinian prisoners if Abbas cracks down on Palestinian rocket attacks. As previously reported in JURIST's Paper Chase, Israel released some 159 prisoners as a goodwill gesture late last month. A meeting between the two sides is expected to take place soon. AP has more. The Palestinian Prisoners Society provides background on the situation and legal status of Palestinian prisoners from the Palestinian perspective.

[JURIST] Two exit polls taken of voters in Palestine's presidential election indicate Mahmoud Abbas (official campaign website here) has won a landslide victory, taking at least 66% of the vote. AP has more. The official count is now underway after polls closed at 9 PM local time (2 PM ET).

4:48 PM ET - Abbas has now declared victory in the poll, addressing a Fatah rally in his home city of Ramallah on the West Bank. From Israel, Haaretz has more. There are, however. late reports of voter fraud, and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights has petitioned the special Palestinian Election Appeals Court against the Central Elections Commission decision earlier in the day to extend the polling by two hours, at the same time allowing voters to vote solely based on their identity cards, without having their names checked against the voter roll or population registry. The appeal will be heard Monday morning. Read the PCHR press release here.

5:33 PM ET - The Central Elections Commission has released preliminary voting figures:

A total of around 700,000 registered voters were joined at the polls by around 70,000 unregistered voters, including 30,000 who registered on arrival at the polling centres on election day.

Despite the efforts made by the CEC to include unregistered voters in the poll, ultimately less than ten per cent of all votes cast fell into this category. While the CEC acknowledges that the conduct of the poll has been less than ideal, with the addition of unregistered voters causing some confusion and potential for error, it remains convinced that a legitimate result will emerge from the votes cast.

[JURIST] Palestinan election officials announced Sunday that the vote to choose a successor for late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat would be extended by two hours until 9 PM local time (2 PM ET) to accommodate what they described as a heavy turnout and also to compensate for confusion at the main east Jerusalem polling station where hundreds of voters were turned away after problems with registration lists. AP has more. The announcement came after a deal was worked out with Israeli officials through former US president Jimmy Carter, leading a team of international election observers. There have, however, been conflicting reports on voter turnout in Jerusalem so the exact situation in that respect is still unclear, and several Palestinian sources have claimed harassment by Israelis at checkpoints despite an official Israeli government commitment to facilitate the voting process. It is expected that a winner in the 7-candidate contest - probably former Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas - will be apparent later tonight, although results will only be official Monday. Read official biographies of the candidates here. The Palestine Central Elections Commission provides official background information about the vote here, including a summary of election arrangements in Jerusalem. The Carter Center provides information on its election observer mission here. The Jerusalem Post provides local coverage of the vote so far, indicated that some 30% of eligible voters had cast their ballots by 3 PM local time. The Palestinian Satellite Channel provides continuous televised coverage of the election and the results here in Arabic.

12:59 PM ET - The Central Elections Commission press release on the poll extension, now available online, points a finger at the Israeli military authorities, striking a different tone from the spokesperson comments referred to in media reports this morning:

The CEC has extended opening hours for polling centers in all electoral districts by 2 hours. Polling centers will now remain open until 9PM.

The CEC took this step after determining that limitations on the movement of Palestinians within and between Palestinian towns continue to be imposed by the Israeli Occupation Army. Obstacles such as checkpoints and military closures have remained in place despite previous Israeli statements that they would be lifted during the Palestinian Presidential Elections to allow for free, fair and transparent elections.

International election observers including ex-President Jimmy Carter, who is observing voting in Jerusalem, concurred with CEC statements on freedom of movement.

Earlier in the day President Jimmy Carter urged Israeli Authorities to facilitate voting in Jerusalem after he declared that Israeli actions this morning were hampering the election process.

[JURIST] A peace agreement ceremoniously signed in Nairobi, Kenya, Sunday between the Sudanese government (official website here) and the southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement (official website here; profile here) formally ended a 21-year civil war, the longest-running internal struggle on the African continent. The deal outlines power and resource sharing plans intended to stabiize relations between the Muslim north and Christian south of the country. It does not, however, directly affect the situation in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, where government-backed militias have been accused of genocide agianst local refugee populations. From Khartoum, the Sudan Tribune provides the full text of several of the protocols underpinning today's agreement here; the SPLM website provides all the protocols in Word format here. AFP offers quotations from leaders speaking at the signing ceremony and onlines the key terms of the peace pact. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] US Army Sgt. 1st Class Tracy Perkins was sentenced late Saturday to six months in a military prison, a demotion in rank to Staff Sgt. and a cut in pay for ordering two Iraqis to be pushed into the Tigris river north of Baghdad in January 2004. Although prosecutors claimed one of the men drowned, no body was ever recovered. In Friday, as prevously reported in JURIST's Paper Chase, a military jury sitting at Fort Hood Texas acquitted Perkins of involuntary manslaughter but found him guilty of aggravated assault in connection with the incident. From Texas, the Houston Chronicle has more.