[JURIST] The Pentagon Monday charged five more Guantanamo Bay detainees - two Saudis, an Algerian, an Ethiopian and a Canadian - with war crimes, bringing to nine the number of detainees charged out of some 500 held at the Cuba naval station. The announcement from the US Defense Department came on the heels of word from the US Supreme Court that it would hear a appeal [JURIST report] from previously-charged detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan against the legality of the military commission process [JURIST news archive], which the Pentagon insists is fair but which does not provide defendants with protections equivalent to either US civilian courts or military courts trying POWs. The charges [US DOD chargesheets] against the five detainees announced Monday range from conspiracy to commit murder, attacking innocent civilians, destruction of property, general terrorism and (in the case of Canadian Omar Khadr [JURIST report], a teenager accused of killing a US soldier in Afghanistan) aiding the enemy. Lawyers for Khadr claimed earlier this year that he had been tortured and abused by US interrogators [JURIST report]. Read the DOD press release on the charges. Also Monday, Appointing Authority John D. Altenburg Jr. [official profile] lifted a stay in the case of previously-charged Ali Hamza Ahmad Sulayman al Bahlul, clearing the way for his trial although no date has yet been set. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] British Home Secretary Charles Clarke [official profile] announced late Monday after consultations with government Labour Party MPs that the government will in fact not back down on a provision of the proposed Terrorism Bill [official text] that would allow terror suspects to be detained for up to 90 days without being charged with a crime, but will instead include a sunset clause in the term allowing the House of Commons to review the provision after a year. Clarke's announcement comes one day after Prime Minister Tony Blair indicated [JURIST report] the government would compromise on the 90-day provision. Clarke expects Labour Party MPs will support the amendment as it stands; the debate over the provision has been fierce [JURIST report], with Conservative Party members want a 28 day provision, and the Liberal Democrats say the period should remain at 14 days. Rights groups such as Amnesty International [advocacy website] and Liberty UK [website] oppose the bill [JURIST report], arguing that provisions such as the 90-day rule unnecessarily limit the freedom of British citizens. BBC News has more.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] on Monday heard oral arguments in Dolan v. US Postal Service [Duke Law case backgrounder; merit briefs], where it will decide whether the US Third Circuit Court of Appeals construed a provision of the Federal Tort Claims Act(FTCA) [text] too narrowly in dismissing a personal injury claim against the Post Office. Barbara Dolan was injured when she slipped on a pile of mail that she claims was negligently put on her front porch rather than in her mailbox; the FTCA bars claims arising out of "the negligent transmission of letters or postal matter." Dolan's attorney argued that the statute was intended to prevent litigation arising out of damage to mail, not to personal injuries sustained through the delivery of mail. Federal courts are in conflict over the definition of negligent transmission. Federal courts in Pennsylvania, where Dolan lives, define transmission broadly as ending when the mail was delivered to Dolan's porch, barring the claim. but federal courts in New York limit negligent transmission to the loss or miscarriage of mail, which would seem to allow a claim like Dolan's. AP has more.

[JURIST] Australian police arrested 15 terror suspects early Tuesday local time in what Victoria state police chief Christine Nixon characterized as "the largest operation of counterterrorism that's ever been conducted in this country." Some 400 officers were involved. The 15 suspects, including Abu Bakr, a prominent radical Islamic cleric from Melbourne who has praised Osama bin Laden, were said to have been plotting a "large scale terrorist attack" on the Australian mainland and will appear in court later today. A lawyer representing eight of the arrestees said that most of his clients were charged with being members of banned organizations. Last week, following a government warning of an imminent terror attack [JURIST report], the Australian Parliament passed an amendment [JURIST report] to existing anti-terrorism laws that expanded state power to allow authorities to prosecute suspects without associating them with a specific terrorist act; Nixon said the amendment was necessary to accomplish the arrests of several of the suspects. AP has more. From Australia, AAP has local coverage; ABC Australia has additional coverage.

[JURIST] The president of the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] said Monday that ICC rules prevent the court from asserting any jurisdiction over claims against Saddam Hussein [JURIST news archive]. Judge Philippe Kirsch [official profile], a Canadian, noted that the new world criminal tribunal at The Hague is only authorized to hear claims arising from incidents occuring after July 1st, 2002; so far Saddam has been charged [JURIST report] only in connection with the 1982 killing of 143 Shiites in the Iraqi village of Dujail. On Monday, Saddam's lawyers repeated [Reuters report] an earlier call [JURIST report] to have Hussein's trial venue moved to a location outside of Iraq, saying that they are risking their lives by remaining in the country, especially after a defense lawyers for one of the former Iraqi dictator's co-defendants was murdered [JURIST report] last month. The defense team has threatened not to cooperate [JURIST report] with the Iraqi Special Tribunal [official website] trying Hussein until security is strengthened as promised by the Iraqi government [JURIST report], or the trial is moved out of the country. AP has more.

[JURIST] As rioting continues to spread in France [JURIST report], Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin [BBC profile] on Monday announced [press release; TF1 interview excerpts, both in French] the implementation of curfews and the deployment of 9,500 police officers and gendarmes in an effort to stop the escalating violence. Under state-of-emergency law, Villepin will impose the measures in as many as 300 localities. Commentators and some European politicians [JURIST report] suggest that the tension in immigrant-dominated, largely-Muslim ghettos is related to broader racial and religious issues in France, symbolized by the debate last spring over the French government's banning [JURIST report] of religious dress [JURIST archive], including Muslim head scarves [BBC report], in schools. AP has more. Le Monde has local coverage (in French).

[JURIST] The US military announced Monday that five members of the 75th Ranger Regiment [official website] have been charged with physically assaulting prisoners in Iraq [press release] in violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice [text]. The five elite soldiers, whose names were not released, were charged in connection with an incident in September 2005 "in which three detainees were allegedly punched and kicked while awaiting movement to a detention facility," according to the US military statement. The announcement comes the same day that President Bush adamantly defended US interrogation techniques [JURIST report] in the war on terror and sought to limit a congressional measure to ban torture. AP has more.

[JURIST] CBS News is reporting that file-sharing software developer Grokster [corporate website] has agreed to shut down its operations in order to settle an online piracy lawsuit filed by Hollywood and the music industry. In June 2005, the US Supreme Court ruled unanimously in MGM v. Grokster [opinion] that owners of file-sharing services can be held liable for contributing to copyright infringement. Grokster and other online music file-sharing companies have since been in settlement negotiations [JURIST report] with the recording industry, with music executives seeking agreements that would require file sharing networks to transition to paid services which prohibit the trading of copyrighted files without the permission of the copyright owner. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has in-depth coverage of the Grokster case.

4:23 PM ET - Under the terms of the settlement agreement [RIAA press release] submitted Monday to a federal court in California, Grokster will immediately stop supporting its file-sharing software and its associated peer-to-peer network. Grokster's co-defendant StreamCast Networks [corporate website], however, remains operational and has said that it will continue fighting the case in court. CNET News has more.

[JURIST] In addition to considering the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld [PDF certiorari petition] case involving Guantanamo tribunals [JURIST report], the US Supreme Court [official website] on Monday granted certiorari in three other cases. In Bustillo v. Johnson, the Court will consider the appeal of Honduran national Mario Bustillo who was convicted of killing a Virginia teenager with a baseball bat. Bustillo was never told of his right to seek legal aid from the Honduran consulate, and his lawyers claim that the denial of consular assistance was highly prejudicial. The case has been consolidated with Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon, and the Court will consider whether the Vienna Convention on Consular Rights [text] conveys individual rights enforceable in US courts, whether a state's failure to notify a defendant of his rights under the convention should result in the suppression of statements to the police, and whether states may refuse to consider violations of consular notification provisions. In its final grant [SCOTUSblog report], the Court took on a case testing how workmen's compensation is treated in bankruptcy cases. Federal circuit courts have been divided over whether a claim for unpaid premiums due on a workmen's compensation liability insurance policy should be given priority-debt status. AP has more. Read the Court's full Order List [PDF text].

[JURIST] US President George W. Bush [JURIST news archive] on Monday defended US interrogation techniques [press conference transcript] in the war on terror and insisted that the US does not torture terror detainees. Answering questions about reports of a secret CIA facility in Eastern Europe [JURIST report] and efforts by Vice President Cheney to seek an exemption for the CIA [JURIST report] from proposed legislation [JURIST document] banning the use of "cruel, inhuman or degrading" interrogation techniques, Bush said:

Our country is at war, and our government has the obligation to protect the American people. The executive branch has the obligation to protect the American people; the legislative branch has the obligation to protect the American people. And we are aggressively doing that. We are finding terrorists and bringing them to justice. We are gathering information about where the terrorists may be hiding. We are trying to disrupt their plots and plans. Anything we do to that effort, to that end, in this effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law. We do not torture.

And, therefore, we're working with Congress to make sure that as we go forward, we make it possible -- more possible to do our job. There's an enemy that lurks and plots and plans, and wants to hurt America again. And so, you bet, we'll aggressively pursue them. But we will do so under the law. And that's why you're seeing members of my administration go and brief the Congress. We want to work together in this matter. We -- all of us have an obligation, and it's a solemn obligation and a solemn responsibility. And I'm confident that when people see the facts, that they'll recognize that we've -- they've got more work to do, and that we must protect ourselves in a way that is lawful.

[JURIST] Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh [official profile] was removed from his position Monday at his own request after allegations arose that he improperly benefited from the now-defunct UN oil-for-food program [JURIST news archive] in Iraq. According to the government, Singh will remain in the Indian cabinet while Premier Manmohan Singh assumes his position pending a newly-formed judicial commission [AFP report] investigation. According to the report [text] issued last month by the UN's Independent Inquiry Committee [official website], Singh, as well as India's Congress party, was part of an international scheme in which political leaders were given vouchers for Iraqi oil which could then be sold on the open market. The UN report alleges that Singh profited from the scheme in 2001 when he was not in office. Singh has said that the charges have no basis. BBC has more.

ALSO ON JURIST  Op-ed: Putting Oil-for-Food in Perspective | Text: UN Oil-for-Food manipulation report

[JURIST] The UN-Afghan Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) [official website] said Monday that final results of Afghanistan's legislative polls will be announced on Wednesday [press release, PDF], and that fraud allegations will not call the results into question. The September 18 vote [JURIST report] was the first opportunity for Afghans to elect members to its Wolesi Jirga [Wikipedia profile], or lower house of parliament, but reports of fraud [JURIST report], including ballot stuffing, proxy voting and voter intimidation, caused the JEMB to investigate and dismiss election workers [JURIST report]. A JEMB spokesman said Monday that "All complaints of the losing candidates have been dealt with carefully and very few have been accompanied with facts such as time and locations. We are confident that the legitimacy of the elections is intact." A slow vote count and the fraud allegations have delayed the announcement of official results, originally scheduled for October 19. Reuters has more.

Previously in JURIST's Paper Chase...

• Fraud investigation delays Afghan election results
• Afghan election workers dismissed for fraud
• Afghanistan officials to investigate voting fraud
• Afghans flex voting rights; polls close with little violence
• Afghan electoral commission releases final candidates list
• Afghanistan starts voter registration amidst UN security concerns

[JURIST] Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori [Wikipedia profile, personal website] was arrested in Chile on Monday at the request of the Peruvian government. Fujimori had arrived from Japan in a bid to reenter Peru and run for the presidency in April 2006, despite the fact that he has been banned from holding public office [JURIST report] until 2010. Fujimori was president of Peru from 1990 to 2000, when he fled to Japan and received Japanese citizenship. Japan has repeatedly refused Peru's requests for Fujimori's extradition to be tried for numerous crimes [JURIST report] that he allegedly committed while in office, including embezzlement and the murder of 25 people. Chilean courts have questioned the legal validity of several international warrants for Fujimori's arrest and are awaiting a formal extradition petition from Peru. BBC News has more.

[JURIST] UK Prime Minister Tony Blair [official website] urged British members of Parliament Monday "not to compromise with the nation's security" by reducing a proposed legislative 90-day time limit for detaining terror suspects without charge recommended [PDF letter] by London's Metropolitan Police. Blair's statement came minutes after Home Secretary Charles Clarke [official profile] proposed a compromise amendment to the government's Terrorism Bill [text] reducing the period to between 28 and 90 days. The original 90-day proposal seems unlikely to pass [JURIST report] in the House of Commons, as Liberal Democrats are pushing for a 14-day limit, while Conservatives support a 28-day limit. The Commons will vote on an amendment Wednesday. In his press conference [statement] Monday, Blair said, "We intend to use the time between now and Wednesday to try to get people to understand the importance of giving the police and our security services the powers they need to prevent terrorism in this country." BBC News has more. The Guardian has additional coverage.

ALSO ON JURIST  Op-ed: New Rules of the Game: The UK Terrorism Bill | Topic: United Kingdom

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website] on Monday agreed to hear a challenge to the Bush administration's use of military tribunals [JURIST news archive] for foreign terror suspects. Hamdan v. Rumsfeld [PDF certiorari petition] comes on appeal from the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, which held [PDF opinion] in July that Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainees may be tried by military commissions [JURIST report], overturning a lower court decision [JURIST report] that military commissions were not competent to determine whether the detainee was a prisoner of war. The case involves Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who allegedly served as a driver for Osama bin Laden, and the lower court ruled that Hamdan had not been found by a competent tribunal to be or not to be a prisoner of war and that he was due the full protections of a prisoner of war under the Third Geneva Convention [text]. The district court further held that the military commission rules were not in keeping with those for a court-martial due a POW. The appeals court ruled that because Hamdan was a member of al Qaeda, the Geneva Conventions did not apply to him and he could not assert the unlawfulness of the military commissions on that basis. Late last month, a group of 450 law professors circulated a statement [PDF text] urging the Court to grant certiorari in the case, saying the Court must "the relationship between the President's constitutional powers as Commander-in-Chief and the existing constitutional, statutory, and international rules and tribunals that govern the conduct of war." Additional case documents are available from the lead counsel for Hamdan, including the government brief opposing certiorari [PDF], and several amicus briefs. The Hamdan case was the focus of a recent online symposium in the New York University Journal of Law and Liberty. AP has more.

ALSO ON JURIST  Topic: Military Tribunals | Op-ed: Guantanamo Process as a Public Danger | Text: Military commission procedure changes [8/05]

[JURIST] A Syrian official said Monday that the country has received a UN request to interview six officials in connection with the UN investigation [UN materials] into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri [JURIST news archive], and is considering whether to comply. While Syrian officials declined to release the identity of the six officials, the al-Hayat newspaper reported Sunday that one was Assef Shawkat, the head of military intelligence and the brother in-law of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad [BBC profile]. Shawkat was implicated [JURIST report] in the interim report [text] issued last month by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, who is heading the UN investigation. The UN Security Council has adopted a resolution criticizing Syria's failure to cooperate [JURIST report] with the investigation, though Syria has since opened its own investigation [JURIST report] into the Hariri murder. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] International voting observers and opposition leaders on Monday challenged the victory claimed by the ruling party in Sunday's Azerbaijan [BBC country profile] elections, saying that the elections were rigged. According to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) [official website], the elections did not meet international standards [press release] for democratic elections, despite some improvements. OSCE officials said that the pre-election period showed more promise than it has in the past, with inclusive candidate registration, compromises on the types of identification voters could present [JURIST report], voter education campaigns and free airtime given to candidates. Problems with voter registration, restricted freedom of assembly and interference from government authorities, however, offset these advances. "It pains me to report that progress noted in the pre-election period was undermined by significant deficiencies in the count," stated Alcee L. Hastings [official website], OSCE's parliamentary assembly president and a US Representative from Florida. The principal opposition coalition, Azadliq [official website in Azeri], is calling for results in four-fifths of the countries 125 voting districts to be annulled. CNN has more.

[JURIST] Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan [BBC profile] linked France's ban on the hijab [JURIST report; JURIST news archive] in public schools to the country's recent rioting [JURIST report], in an interview Monday with the Turkish newspaper Milliyet [media website, in Turkish]. Erdogan blamed feelings of exclusion for stirring racial tensions and encouraging the violence which has resulted in more than 1,000 arrests, 36 police injuries, and one death since the riots began on October 27. The riots originated in suburban Paris among disaffected youths, primarily of Muslim or African descent, but have spread to nearly 300 towns [AP report]. In response to the violence, the Union for Islamic Organizations of France [organization website, in French], France's largest Muslim fundamentalist organization, has issued a fatwa forbidding those "who seek divine grace from taking part in any action that blindly strikes private or public property or can harm others." AFP has more. Le Monde has local coverage (in French) of the rioting.

[JURIST] US Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito [official profile] is not likely to be filibustered by Senate Democrats, Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) [website], a senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee [official website] said Sunday. Biden said a decision on whether to oppose Alito's nomination would not be made until more legislators met and had a chance to speak with Alito, but that an up or down vote was likely. Republican Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) [website] also said Sunday, "I have not seen any significant concern that might lead to filibuster, but [Democrats are] certainly reserving all of their options, and I think that's appropriate." A simple Senate majority is needed to ensure Alito's confirmation, but 60 votes are required to break a filibuster. Alito's confirmation hearings are scheduled to begin on January 9 [JURIST report]. Reuters has more.

Previously in JURIST's Paper Chase...

• Senate 'Gang of 14' compromise group may split over Alito nomination
• Senators stake out positions on possible Alito filibuster

ALSO ON JURIST  Topic: Samuel Alito | Op-ed: Better Luck This Time: Why Alito Is Hard to Beat | Audio: Bush address on Alito nomination

[JURIST] US Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) [official website] said Sunday that the Bush administration is making a "terrible mistake" by opposing a proposed ban on torture and other inhuman treatment of prisoners [JURIST document] in US custody. The amendment, proposed by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) [official website], was approved by a 90-9 vote [JURIST report] in the Senate last month and added to the 2006 defense spending bill. The measure was also unanimously reaffirmed [JURIST report] by voice-vote last week. President Bush has threatened to veto the legislation [JURIST report; White House policy statement, PDF] if the provision is included in the final version of the spending bill agreed upon after House-Senate negotiations. Additionally, Vice President Cheney has urged Senators to include an exemption for CIA officers [JURIST report], arguing that CIA agents should be allowed to employ "cruel, inhuman or degrading" interrogation tactics if the president decides such procedures are necessary to prevent an imminent terrorist attack. Meanwhile, McCain has vowed to include the torture ban [LA Times report] "in every piece of important legislation voted on in the Senate" until the President signs the ban into law. AP has more.

ALSO ON JURIST  Op-ed: Perjury, Lies and Degrading Treatment: The Case for the McCain Amendment

[JURIST] Several leading US Senators expressed concern Sunday over the FBI's use of a USA Patriot Act [PDF text] provision that enables the Federal Bureau of Investigation [official website] to access private phone and financial records. The Sunday follow a report in the Washington Post that the FBI is issuing over 30,000 national security letters [PDF sample text; ACLU backgrounder] yearly under the Patriot Act, more than a hundredfold increase over historic levels. The FBI has used security letters to get access to phone, e-mail, and financial records since the 1970s, but under the Patriot Act, records sought no longer need to be those of someone under suspicion. Instead, the FBI must only show that the records are "relevant" to a terrorist investigation. Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE) [official website], member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Sunday that it seems that the FBI's power under the Patriot Act "is, if not abused, being close to abused." Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) [official website], member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, acknowledged that the government's expanded powers highlight the need to balance national security against individual rights. A Justice Department spokesman, while not confirming the 30,000 number, said the power to use security letters was justified and that the "Department of Justice inspector general in August 2005 found no civil rights violations with respect to the Patriot Act." The Second Circuit is currently considering a challenge [JURIST report] to FBI use of the letters on the basis that they constitute unreasonable searches and seizures in violation of the Constitution. AP has more.