[JURIST] Documents showing Saddam Hussein's role in Iraq's 1987-1989 Anfal campaign [HRW backgrounder] against the Kurds are ready to be presented to the Iraqi High Criminal Court [official website; JURIST news archive], according to Jaafar Al Moussawi, the chief prosecutor in the Saddam Hussein trial [JURIST news archive], speaking to AFP Saturday. The Anfal campaign led to the deaths of more than 180,000 Kurds and the destruction of 4,500 villages, including the gassing of thousands of Kurds in Halabja [US State Dept. backgrounder] in 1988. Saddam is currently on trial for the 1982 massacre of 148 Shiite villagers in Dujail [JURIST report], and will later go on trial for the Anfal killings, if he is not convicted and hung in the Dujail trial first. The Anfal documents, as well as new Dujail documents, must undergo authentication by experts before they can be presented to the Court because Saddam and his co-defendants earlier questioned the authenticity of documents entered against them in the Dujail trial.

Saddam’s defense team recently added a female Saudi lawyer [JURIST report] - the second female on the defense team. His trial on the Dujail charge has been adjourned until April 5 [JURIST report]. AFP has more.

[JURIST] French union and student leaders Saturday rejected as "unacceptable" a compromise offered by President Jacques Chirac [official profile] on the First Employment Contract (CPE) [text, in French; official backgrounder, in English; JURIST news archive], insisting they would continue public protests. Chirac announced [JURIST report] in a televised address [TF1 recorded video] Friday that he intends to sign the legislation. As drafted, it allows employers to fire workers under the age of 26 without cause in the first two years of their employment. Chirac’s proposed compromise cuts the time period to one year, and requires employers to give a reason for dismissal. Chirac said he would not allow any CPE contracts to be concluded under the new law until the changes were made. France's Constitutional Council [official website] on Thursday ruled [decision, in French; case materials, in French] that the law does not violate the country's constitution [JURIST report].

The CPE has sparked a wave of protests [JURIST report] by students and union workers across France in the past few weeks; on Tuesday, well over a million people demonstrated against it. Protesters fear that the CPE will increase unemployment and destroy job security among young workers, although the law is actually intended to curb unemployment, which in France is running at a rate of 10 percent, 22 percent for workers under 25. While France has some of the best job security in Europe, it has the highest unemployment rate as well. VOA has more.

ALSO ON JURIST  Op-ed: Labor Law Protests in France: 1968 Encore? | Comment: French labor law protests and the Constitutional Council ruling

[JURIST] US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice [official profile] defended the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in a news conference [transcript] Saturday with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw [official profile] at the end of a UK visit. In response to questions on when Guantanamo might be closed, she insisted that:

the United States doesn't desire to keep Guantanamo in being any longer than it's needed because we don't want to be the world's jailer. That's not the United States because it's not U.S. policy.

But we have to recognize that Guantanamo is there for a reason. It's there because we captured people on battlefields, particularly in Afghanistan but sometimes, frankly, on the battlefields of our own democratic societies, who were either plotting or planning or actively engaged in terrorist activities. And we have released hundreds of people from Guantanamo. It is not as if everybody who was in Guantanamo on October 1st, 2001 or January 1st, 2002 is still in Guantanamo. We have gone out of our way to try to release people. We've released British citizens back to Great Britain. We've done that with many different countries.

But there are some people who cannot either be safely be released to their countries or certainly safely released, and there are people for whom the value of the information that they have is still relevant to the fight against terror.

But I would just ask: What would be the alternative? If the alternative is to release people onto the streets so that they can do harm again, that we're not going to do. If the alternative is to try people, that we want to do. And we are looking for the means to do that, including the fact that the fate of military commissions is being reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court, and so I'll say nothing more about that since it's a court case.

But I want to assure you, the reasons for Guantanamo have to do with the necessities of keeping very dangerous people off the streets.

[JURIST] The jury in the Zacarias Moussaoui [JURIST news archive] sentencing trial is taking the weekend off after adjourning Friday, having not yet reached a verdict on whether the alleged al Qaeda terrorist should receive the death penalty [JURIST report]. The jury will resume its discussions Monday. Moussaoui pleaded guilty [JURIST report] to six conspiracy charges [indictment] last year.

In related news, lawyers representing family members in a Sept. 11 civil negligence suit against airlines, airport authorities, and security companies filed court papers [memorandum in support of motion, PDF] Friday requesting access to trial documents and exhibits from the Moussaoui case. Lawyers say the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) [official website], and specifically TSA lawyer Carla Martin [Wikipedia profile], have failed to provide access to the materials, which they claim are relevant to their claims. A hearing will be held next week to consider the lawyers' request. The Richmond Times-Dispatch has more.

[JURIST] A New Jersey appeals court on Friday upheld [PDF opinion] a July 2005 trial court decision [PDF] to certify a nationwide class of plaintiffs suing the drug maker Merck [corporate website] for damages relating to its withdrawn drug Vioxx [JURIST news archive]. The plaintiffs - consisting of health providers, unions, and insurers - accuse Merck of knowing about the increased heart risks involved with taking the drug, and are suing the drug maker to recover losses they incurred from purchasing the drug for employee health plans.

Merck has argued [Bloomberg report] that it is more appropriate for the case to be argued in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, and plans to appeal Friday's decision to the New Jersey Supreme Court. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] In a speech in Los Angeles on Friday, US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced [speech text] that the US Department of Justice, through its anti-gang initiative, will give out $15 million in grants to six areas to help fund their fight against gang violence. The eligible areas are Los Angeles, California; Tampa, Florida; Cleveland, Ohio; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas; and a region known as the 222 Corridor in southern Pennsylvania. The grant money will be portioned out over a three year period. AP has more.

Friday's announcement ties in with the Justice Department's broader effort to combat gang-related problems in communities throughout the US, which it announced in February [official press release]. According to the National Crime Victimization Survey [summary], gang members commit almost 6 percent [Bureau of Justice Statistics report] of the 6.6 million violent victimizations each year. Over 70 percent of states have enacted some form of legislation [National Youth Gang Center summary; database of gang-related legislation] to curb gang-related violence; the legislation generally enhances penalties for crimes such as drive-by shootings, graffiti, gang activity and forfeiture, and gang member recruitment.

[JURIST] Britain has circulated a draft resolution to fellow UN Security Council [official website] members that would permit the pending war crimes trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] to be moved from Sierra Leone to The Hague. UK diplomats say Taylor's continued presence in the region may pose security concerns and threaten instability following his arrest [JURIST report] in Nigeria last Wednesday after an attempted escape [JURIST report]. The draft resolution comes in response to a request [JURIST report] by the Special Court for Sierra Leone [official website] to allow the Court try him at the facilities of one of the other UN courts operating in the Dutch city. The draft resolution will likely be adopted. Meanwhile, Taylor's first court appearance before the Special Court for Sierra Leone in Freetown is still scheduled for Monday.

In related news, the US Department of Justice [official website] has reported that Taylor's son, US citizen Charles Taylor Jr., the former head of his father's presidential guard, was arrested at the Miami airport Thursday and is being held for making false statements on a passport application. BBC News has more. AP has additional coverage.

[JURIST] The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina [official website] ruled Friday that Bosnia's main ethnic groups dominating the country's two semi-autonomous regions must discontinue use of ethnic symbols, including anthems, flags, and coats of arms adopted after the 1992-95 Bosnian war, because they were discriminatory. Serbs in the Republic of Srpska [official website] and Muslims and Croats in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina [official website] will have to change their symbols within the next six months in response to the court ruling. The Constitutional Court decided that the use of the ethnic symbols discriminated against minority ethnic groups in the areas.

Sulejman Tihic [Southeast European Times profile], the Bosnian Muslim leader on the country's rotating tripartite presidency, initiated the complaint by alleging the symbols violated the European Convention on Human Rights [text]. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] President Bush on Friday completed a two-day summit in Cancun with Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper by once again calling on the US Congress [joint remarks transcript] to pass immigration reform legislation that would allow illegal immigrants to stay in the United States as temporary workers. Earlier this week the Senate Judiciary Committee approved draft immigration legislation [JURIST report] providing for a temporary guest worker program, but the provision is contentious and may yet fail, either on the Senate floor or in negotiations with the House, which passed stricter immigration legislation [JURIST report] late last year.

The end of the summit came the same day as thousands of students in California, Texas, Nevada and several other states held demonstrations [AP report] on the 79th anniversary of the birth of Hispanic labor leader Cesar Chavez [LAPL profile] to protest proposed measures that could lead to mass criminalizations and deportations of illegals. The Chicago Tribune has more.