[JURIST] ICTY Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte marked the sudden death of Slobodan Milosevic [JURIST report] Saturday by reiterating her call [JURIST report] for the remaining fugitives from the Hague war crimes tribunal to be brought to justice and tried. She said in a statement:

The death of Slobodan Milosevic, a few weeks before the completion of his trial, will prevent justice to be done in his case. However, the crimes for which he was accused, including genocide, cannot be left unpunished. There are other senior leaders accused of these crimes, six of them who are still at large. The international community and the Tribunal are responsible to the victims to ensure that all of these accused are brought to justice and tried in The Hague, especially Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.

The death of any individual is a sad event. I think particularly of his family. Personally I have had a long, difficult relationship with Slobodan Milosevic from many encounters in dramatic circumstances.

But we cannot ignore the fact that many men and women suffered from the consequences of his policies. My thoughts also go to them.

My message today to the Serbian people is to come to terms with the legacy of Milosevic. This will help them in moving forward towards the family of European nations to which they belong.

[JURIST] US lawmakers have indicated that they intend to press ahead with a vote next week on legislation to block the transfer of operations at 6 US ports to United Arab Emirates-owned Dubai Ports World. The controversial deal is widely considered to be dead after DPW announced Thursday that it would transfer its operating rights, newly acquired from British P&O, to a US firm, but some observers say that transfer might not be as easy as it might sound and that lawmakers would take no chances.

Last Wednesday the US House Appropriations Committee [official website] voted 62-2 [JURIST report] to amend an emergency appropriations bill for Iraq and Gulf Coast reconstruction with a provision [PDF] blocking the deal, and a spokesman for House Speaker Dennis Hastert says that a vote in the full House would take place Wednesday or Thursday. The White House has threatened to veto the appropriations bill if it comes forward with that provision. Even if the amendment is defeated, however, extended debate on it could be politically damaging to President Bush, who has come in for sharp criticism from members of his own Republican party for allowing the deal to go as far as it did. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] A New York federal judge Friday issued a highly-unusual classified ruling rejecting a defense motion to dismiss a US case brought against two Albany mosque members originally charged [JURIST report] with money laundering and supporting terrorism after their arrests in a government sting operation. The designation of the ruling as secret and not merely sealed means that the defense lawyers in the case cannot even read the judge's reasons for why their motion was refused. The defense had brought the motion alleging that evidence in the case may have been illegally obtained through National Security Agency wiretaps under the President's controversial domestic surveillance program [JURIST news archive]. Judge Thomas J. McAvoy of the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York made his ruling after prosecutors gave him classified documents relevant to the case. The lawyer for one of the accused told the New York Times that the classification of the ruling had convinced him that evidence from secret wiretaps had in fact been used.

A specific terrorism charge against Yassin Aref, 35, an imam at the Masjid as-Salam mosque [mosque website] in Albany and Mohammed Hossain, 50, a mosque founder who owns a restaurant, was later dropped when it was found to be based on a Defense Department mistranslation of evidence [NYT report]. Hossain is currently out on bail pending trial; Aref has been re-arrested on new charges. The New York Times has more. The number of secret proceedings in US federal courts [JURIST report] has increased in recent years, according to new studies.

[JURIST] Pentagon officials said Friday that the force-feeding of hunger-striking detainees [JURIST news archive] at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] would continue despite opposition from doctors who signed an open letter [PDF] published in the British medical journal Lancet [journal website] earlier this week. The letter, endorsed by 263 doctors from seven countries [JURIST report], called for the US to halt force-feeding by stomach tubes and the use of restraint chairs for prisoners, and called for an independent medical evaluation of the situation. The letter also noted that the World Medical Association [profession website] specifically bans the use of force-feeding in declarations to which the American Medical Association [group website] is a party.

The Pentagon says there are 6 detainees currently on a hunger strike, including 3 being tube-fed, down from a peak of about 130 hunger strikers in September 2005. The Pentagon also challenges the jurisdiction of the WMA to condemn the practice, noting: "Professional organization declarations by doctors, lawyers, dentists, etc. are not international treaties, therefore are nonbinding and not applicable to sovereign nation-states." Reuters has more.

[JURIST] After a day and half of deliberation a federal jury Friday found former mayor of Atlanta Bill Campbell [Wikipedia backgrounder] not guilty of racketeering, fraud and bribery charges, although he was found guilty on three counts of tax evasion. Campbell, mayor from 1994 to 2002, was charged [US DOJ indictment summary, PDF] two years later with taking bribes of more than $160,000 [JURIST report] in exchange for city contracts during his administration.

Campbell's indictment stemmed from a seven year corruption probe which later convicted 10 others from his administration. Campbell could receive to up to nine years in prison. No sentencing date has yet been set. AP has more.

[JURIST] A federal judge ruled Friday that former vice-presidential Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby [defense profile; JURIST news archive] be given limited access to presidential security briefing transcripts to assist him in his defense against perjury charges in the CIA leak case [JURIST news archive]. Libby claims that he was so busy with security matters around the time of the leak that he simply forget his conversation with reporters about the identity of former CIA operative Valerie Plame [JURIST news archive].

US DC District Court Judge Reggie B. Walton addressed security concerns [JURIST report] voiced by the CIA about potential release of the secret top-level briefings by saying that the agency only needed to provide redacted versions of the material - "tables of contents" or topic indexes of the documents "sufficient...for the defendant to refresh his recollection to
adequately accomplish the objectives of his defense."

The Court has painstakingly endeavored to ensure that the defendant is provided with the information he truly needs to prepare his defense based upon what he has represented through counsel will be his theory of why he should not be held culpable for the offenses charged in the indictment. It is based upon this assessment that the Court has concluded that the topic areas of the documents used to brief the defendant during his morning intelligence briefings and the subjects areas of documents that contain the inquiries the defendant made during these briefings are material to the preparation of the defense and thus discoverable under Rule 16. Accordingly, and consistent with this opinion, the Court will require the government to produce either (1) redacted versions of those documents with the defendant being provided what in effect is a table of contents for each set of documents or separate topic overviews of the subject matter contained in those documents and (2) the topic areas of any documents reflecting the inquiries made by the defendant for additional information during his morning intelligence briefings.

[JURIST] Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic [JURIST news archive], on trial at The Hague for genocide and war crimes [ICTY case materials], has died suddenly, according to the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia [official website]. The cause of death is not yet known. The Tribunal has issued the following statement:

Today, Saturday 11 March 2006, Slobodan Milosevic was found lifeless on his bed in his cell at the United Nations Detention Unit in Scheveningen.

The guard immediately alerted the Detention Unit Officer in command and the Medical Officer. The latter confirmed that Slobodan Milosevic was dead.

The Dutch Police and a Dutch coroner were called in and started an enquiry. A full autopsy and a toxicological examination have been ordered. Pursuant to his authority under the Tribunal’s Statute and Rules of Detention, the Tribunal President, Judge Fausto Pocar, has ordered a full inquiry.

Slobodan Milosevic’s family has been informed.

[JURIST] UN General Assembly President Jan Eliasson [official profile] has postponed until next week a scheduled plenary to approve the proposed UN Human Rights Council [JURIST news archive], the body anticipated to take the place of the severely-criticized UN Commission on Human Rights. Eliasson had hoped to have a draft resolution [JURIST document; Eliasson briefing video] on the Council approved by the time the next session of the Commission was scheduled to begin in Geneva on March 13, but last-minute objections [JURIST report] from the United States - itself a severe critic [JURIST report] of the Commission - have forced a delay as diplomats attempt to negotiate an acceptable agreement on precisely what form the new Council will take.

Eliasson has said that he wants to proceed by consensus on the Council resolution, already a compromise document constructed through long negotiations: "I think it is very important that the president's text is adopted without a vote as is the tradition in the United Nations. If there is a vote, there is always the risk that a number of amendments are being proposed and that the draft resolution will be hard to recognize after such an exercise...". The UN News Center has more. AP has additional coverage.