[JURIST] A US federal court jury Friday found against a former Salvadoran Army colonel [CJA press release], holding him responsible for murder and torture carried out during the El Salvador civil war [PBS backgrounder] in the 1980s. The jury heard a lawsuit [CJA legal documents] filed by five Salvadoran citizens who alleged they were tortured or had family members killed by soldiers who served under Nicolas Carranza [CJA profile], the top commander of El Salvador's security forces during the war. A verdict was reached in favor of four of the five accusers with the jury awarding $500,000 in compensatory damages to each plaintiff. The lawsuit accused Carranza, who moved to Memphis, Tennessee in 1985, of allowing crimes against humanity during the war. The Salvadorans were able to bring their case in a US court [JURIST report] under the Alien Tort Claims Act [HRW overview], which allows foreign victims of serious human rights abuse abroad to sue perpetrators in federal court. The jury will continue deliberations on the fifth case and will also consider awarding punitive damages to the plaintiffs. AP has more.

[JURIST] The US House of Representatives voted Friday to repeal a trade program passed in 2000 which the World Trade Organization (WTO) [official website] has determined to be a violation of global trade laws [JURIST report]. The Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act [text], otherwise known as the Byrd Amendment, has paid competing US companies over $1 billion from duties collected on imports that the government considered to be unfairly priced or subsidized. The House voted to repeal the act as part of a larger package of budget cuts, but ending the program faces an anticipated debate in the US Senate which has approved its own set of budget cuts that do not include killing the Byrd Amendment. A report [PDF text] released earlier this year [JURIST report] by the Government Accountability Office [official website] revealed that almost $500 million of the payments went to only five companies and two-thirds of the total payments were made to just three industries - steel, bearings and candles. Eleven countries who trade with the US challenged the act at the WTO which mandated a 2003 deadline for repealing the measure. As a result of the US missing that deadline, the European Union [official website], Canada, Japan, and Mexico imposed a retaliatory measure [JURIST report] of approximately $115 million on US exports. US senators sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist [official website] earlier this month asking him not to give into House demands to kill the act. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] A former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) [official website] has called US Vice President Dick Cheney [official website] a "vice president for torture," saying that the Bush administration condones and even approves torture policies. Admiral Stansfield Turner, a Carter administration appointee who led the CIA from 1977 to 1981, spoke to Britain's ITV News [ITV report] and said Cheney was damaging America's reputation by overseeing torture policies for potential terrorist suspects. Turner said that torturing to elicit information from terror suspects is immoral, not effective, and encourages the country's adversaries to do the same. The admiral stated, "We have crossed the line into dangerous territory. I am embarrassed that the USA has a vice president for torture. I think it is just reprehensible. [Cheney] advocates torture, what else is it? I just don't understand how a man in that position can take such a stance." Turner said he does not believe repeated reports by President Bush that the US does not condone torture. Earlier this month, US senators affirmed their support [JURIST report] for an anti-torture amendment [JURIST document] sponsored by Sen. John McCain [official website], but the White House has threatened to veto the provision [JURIST report] if it is passed by the US House of Representatives. The UK Press Association has more.

[JURIST] Iraqi Special Tribunal [official website] officials Thursday denied reports that Saddam Hussein [JURIST news archive] was attacked and punched several times [BBC report] by two court clerks after he insulted two Shiite saints during an interrogation session. Chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Mousawi said "no one in the court attacked Saddam or punished him and we will never allow anyone in the court to harm any of the defendants, whether it is Saddam or someone else." Mousawi added that he was not aware that Saddam had even cursed the two saints - Imam Hussein and his brother Imam Abbas - which was reported by the state-run al-Iraqiya TV [media website] earlier this week, but it was not reported when the incident allegedly occurred. Mousawi said the only incident he was aware of occurred two months ago when two court guards escorted Saddam from the court room after he began making political statements in front of a camera in the room. AP has more.

[JURIST] The US Department of Justice [official website] has downplayed the conclusions of a 51-page memo [DOJ document] indicating that a Georgia voter identification law [PDF text] will harm black voters, saying the information was based on old data and followed a faulty analysis. Earlier this year, the Georgia state legislature passed a plan that requires all voters to have photo IDs, with many black lawmakers and Democrats opposing the measure. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 [DOJ backgrounder] mandates Georgia and other states with a history of discriminatory elections to submit changes in voting plans to the DOJ. After a review, senior Justice officials determined that the Georgia plan could proceed [JURIST report], but it has been blocked by federal courts [JURIST report] on constitutional grounds since then. The memo indicating harm to black voters was submitted by four or five members of a DOJ legal review team [JURIST report] one day before the Justice Department made its decision to allow the Georgia voting plan. A spokesman for the Justice Department said that the memo "was an early draft that did not include data and analysis from other voting section career attorneys who recognized the absence of a retrogressive effect." Friday's Washington Post has more.

[JURIST] A district court in Kiev Friday reinstated [Itar-Tass report] Svyatoslav Piskun as Ukraine's prosecutor general after Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko [BBC profile] dismissed him last month. Piskun accused the president of terminating him because he began an investigation into the expenditures of Yushchenko's wife [JURIST report]. Piskun said Friday that he was satisfied with the court's opinion calling it a "matter of principle," but has not yet decided whether he will actually return to the role. Ukraine's Minister of Justice Serhiy Holovaty has vowed to appeal the court's decision calling the ruling "absurd" and saying, "The President's team has lost the first round, but will win the war." Holovaty also criticized the judges deciding the case discouraging "anyone to appeal to these judges, as there is no justice, and no one can count on it." From Ukraine, ForUm has local coverage and URA-Inform has more.

[JURIST] Government lawyers have defended US treatment of a suicidal Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainee in court papers filed this week, claiming that he is receiving appropriate mental health care and otherwise being treated humanely. Jumah Dossari [Amnesty International case sheet] has made nine suicide attempts since March 2003, including an attempt in front of his lawyer [JURIST report] and another earlier this week [AP report]. His lawyers went to federal court on November 5 to seek a relaxation in his solitary confinement [JURIST report] and more contact with lawyers and relatives. The government filing denies that Dossari's treatment is cruel, and says that Dossari himself has refused medication and exercise breaks. It also says he has watched movies, eaten pizza, and played checkers with interrogators. Joshua Colangelo-Bryan [profile], Dossari's attorney, responded to the claim by saying "The idea of pizza parties and checkers makes me think I should try to find some interrogators for myself. It sounds like a slumber party." Friday's Washington Post has more.

[JURIST] Federal prosecutors have charged an official of St. Tammany Parish [official website] with accepting kickbacks to arrange a debris-removal contract as part of the Hurricane Katrina [JURIST news archive] cleanup. St. Tammany Parish Council [official website] member Joseph Impastato is accused of taking $85,000 from a local businessman who had a site available for dumping. The parish awards contracts every year in order to have sites available to dump storm debris; the complaint alleges that Impastato told the businessman that he could arrange for a sub-contract if they agreed to split the proceeds. Friday's New York Times has more.

[JURIST] Leading Friday's international brief, UN officials are now admitting that membership of the Security Council is unlikely to change anytime soon, despite months of negotiation and calls for changes [JURIST report] to the body's composition. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan supports expansion [JURIST report], and the US supports it in principle, but it opposed the plans put forth [JURIST report]. As a permanent member of the Security Council, a US veto would torpedo a proposal. Japan, Germany, Brazil, and India [JURIST report] were the primary players considered for addition, along with guaranteed spots for African nations and rotating positions. US ambassador to the UN John Bolton [official profile] predicted in October that expansion proposals would fail because the US supports only adding four or five new members, not 10 or more as the proposals suggested. Two days of speeches last week seemed to signal the loss of any momentum for the process, and Jan Eliasson, UN General Assembly president, said Thursday that he is only in "listening mode" on the issue. The New York Times has more.

In other international legal news ...

• Indonesian officials on Friday dismissed a Dutch report [press release] released Wednesday that called the 1969 "Act of Free Choice" vote [Wikipedia backgrounder] in West Papua [advocacy website], in which just over 1,000 individuals selected by the Indonesian government decided that all of the then-700,000 populace would remain under Indonesian rule, a fraud and argued that Indonesia had violated international law and the UN Charter by absorbing West Papua as a province. The vote on self-determination was required as part of a 1962 agreement between the Netherlands, which had exercised colonial rule over the western half of New Guinea, and Indonesia, which claimed the territory as part of the de-colonization process. The UN Temporary Executive Authority was supposed to administer the island until 1969, when residents would be allowed to vote on their future political ties, but within a year, the UNTEA handed control of the territory over to Indonesia. Indonesian officials rejected the claims of the report, saying that the Netherlands and the international community had accepted the status of West Papua as a legitimate province of Indonesia. JURIST's Paper Chase has continuing coverage of Indonesia[JURIST news archive]. The Jakarta Post has local coverage.
  
  
• The UN-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society [official website], being held in Tunisia, has been the site of an informal debate between attending nations over the right of governments to limit freedom of the press and access to information. Officials from China and Senegal have taken a strong stand against the UN implementing any kind of official review of governments that block access to internet sites deemed 'seditious', arguing that state sovereignty allows independent nations to combat the 'negative impact' of the internet. China recently forced Yahoo News services [official website] to release the identity of a reporter [JURIST report] that published an article critical of the Chinese government. The head of international advocacy group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) [official website] Robert Menard was denied access to Tunisia [RSF report] in spite of being accredited to attend the summit because he faces criminal charges for incidents relating to the protest of the Tunisia tourist office in Paris in 2002. Menard has repeatedly called on the UN to take active steps to sanction the Tunisian government for limiting the access of its citizens to the internet. The Mail & Guardian Online has more.
  
  
• The Sri Lankan Department of Elections [official website] confirmed that ruling-party candidate Mahinda Rajapakse [official website, BBC profile] won Thursday's presidential election by receiving just over 50 percent of the national votes cast. Rajapakse has vowed to take a hard line on peace talks with rebel Tamil leaders and has stated that he intends to renegotiate the current ceasefire agreed to under former Sri Lankan president Chandrika Kumaratunga [official profile]. Rajapakse has also pledged to end attempts at privitization of national services in Sri Lanka [government website] and to initiate public agricultural subsidies. The election was touted as the most peaceful in Sri Lanka's independent history, as the Tamil Tigers [advocacy website] proclaimed no interest in the outcome of the election. BBC News has more.

[JURIST] Former French UN ambassador Jean-Bernard Merimee has admitted to a French judge that he accepted $156,000 [JURIST report] in connection with the now-defunct UN Oil-for-Food program [official website; JURIST news archive]. Merimee received the money by way of oil allocations from Saddam Hussein's government that could be sold for profit; he is thought to be the first high-level official to admit wrongdoing in the scandal. No decisions have yet been announced on criminal charges. Le Figaro has local coverage (in French); the Sydney Morning Herald has more.

[JURIST] Kizza Besigye [BBC profile], the president of the opposition Forum for Democratic Change party, appeared in a military court in Uganda [JURIST news archive] on Friday along with 18 others on charges of treason [JURIST report]. Besigye is the top challenger to President Yoweri Museveni in the 2006 election. The US Embassy in Uganda called for the trial to be completed early enough not to affect the election [AP report], and also urged [statement text] Uganda to "examine the basis for the charges against Dr. Besigye and his co-defendants carefully." Besigye's arrest on Monday sparked two days of rioting. BBC News has more.

[JURIST] UN High Commissioner for Human Rights [official website] Louise Arbour Friday called for an international investigation [UNHCHR press release] into present conditions in Iraqi jails after 173 malnourished, beaten and possibly tortured detainees [JURIST report] were found in a secret Iraqi Interior Ministry [Global Security backgrounder] prison facility earlier this week. The Iraqi government has already announced plans to investigate the prisoner abuse itself, and on Thursday said it would extend the investigation to all facilities nationwide [JURIST report], but Arbour indicated that an internal governmental inquiry may not be enough:

In the light of the apparently systemic nature and magnitude of the problem, and the importance of public confidence in any inquiry, I urge the authorities to consider calling for an international inquiry. An international element would help the authorities address the problems in the system of detention in an impartial and objective way.

[JURIST] A Bosnian Serb court Thursday handed down its first war crimes ruling since the end of the Bosnian war in 1995 by sentencing three former Serb police officers to up to 20 years in prison for the deaths of six Muslim citizens. The three officers were originally accused of murder in 1994, but were released after their trial. An appeal changed the charges against them into war crimes, including allegations of ethnic cleansing of Muslims and Croats. While this marks the first verdict in the Bosnian Serb area of the country, dozens of war crimes investigations and trials have occurred in the Muslim-Croat half of Bosnia [JURIST news archive]. One of the three convicted officers has not yet been captured but was tried in absentia. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Federal immigration officials Thursday raided a Wal-Mart [corporate website; JURIST news archive] distribution center construction site in Pennsylvania and arrested over 120 workers for immigration violations. Agents from the US Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) [official website] worked with the US Department of Labor [official website], the US Social Security Administration [official website], Pennsylvania State Police, and the local sheriff's office to raid the site. Wal-Mart officials said they would cooperate with ICE and the Attorney General's office in the matter, but claimed that the arrested workers were employees of a subcontractor and that they require all their subcontractors to comply with federal, state and local laws. In 2003, a raid of 60 Wal-Mart stores in 21 states [JURIST report] revealed over 200 illegal workers and store executives claimed to have had no knowledge of the illegal aliens, saying that cleaning contractors hired them. An affidavit unsealed by ICE earlier this month, however, shows that two Wal-Mart executives knew [JURIST report] that the workers were being hired. Wal-Mart agreed to pay $11 million to settle [JURIST report] US DOJ allegations earlier this year. USA Today has more.

[JURIST] United Nations [official website] human rights representatives Friday rejected an offer to visit the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] after US officials formally refused their demand for unconditional access to the detainees [JURIST report] earlier this week. The envoys from the UN Commission on Human Rights [official website]had wanted free access [JURIST report] to interview the 500 prisoners currently being held. They released a statement [text] saying, "We deeply regret that the United States government did not accept the standard terms of reference for a credible, objective and fair assessment of the situation of the detainees. Under the circumstances, we will not be traveling to Guantanamo Bay naval station." Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Legislation to reauthorize the USA Patriot Act [PDF text; JURIST news archive], many provisions of which are due to expire at the end of the year if not renewed, stalled Thursday as members of the bill's negotiating committee worked to appease some senators who are concerned about the removal of civil liberties protections. Senators on the committee have not yet agreed to the tentative House-Senate compromise [JURIST report] reached on Wednesday, since they are aware that six Republican and Democratic senators have threatened to block the USA Patriot Act and Terrorism Prevention Reauthorization Act of 2005 [bill summary] when it reaches the Senate floor. The six senators voiced concerns that the compromise removed civil liberty protections that senators had previously agreed upon, including the removal of a Senate requirement that the government inform individuals about secret searches of their homes or businesses within seven to 30 days, and removal of a Senate proposal that would have mandated law enforcement authorities to come under judicial review for searches [JURIST report] of financial, medical, library, and schools. The US House of Representatives had hoped to approve the compromise Friday so Congress could adjourn for the Thanksgiving holiday, but the civil liberties concerns may push back the vote. AP has more.