[JURIST] Indonesia [JURIST news archive] will release two prisoners convicted of the 2002 bombings that killed over 200 people at a Bali nightclub [BBC report], prison officials said Monday. The convicts will be freed Tuesday to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid ul-Fitr [BBC backgrounder], the end of Ramadan [BBC backgrounder]. Indonesia has a prisoner remission program for various holidays including August 17, marking the country's independence from Dutch colonial rule, and religious holidays, such as Christmas and Eid ul-Fitr. The Indonesian remission program has been strongly criticized by foreign governments for years, including countries such as Australia whose citizens have been victims of Indonesian terrorists. In August, there was consternation in Australia [Melbourne Age report] when another prisoner sentenced in connection with the 2002 attacks walked free after having his sentence celebratorily cut by three months. In response to these complaints, the Indonesian government recently passed a regulation which toughens the standards for remission of prison sentences [Xinhua report] for "serious" crimes, such as drug trafficking and terrorism.

Sirojul Munir was convicted of harboring two of the bombing masterminds. Details surrounding the second inmate, Mudjarot, and his conviction are not available. Both men were scheduled to be released from prison in less than two months. Three of the prisoners connected with the bombings are on death row and have recently been granted a stay of execution [JURIST report] while they await a final appeal. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales [official profile; JURIST news archive] defended the new Military Commissions Act of 2006 [PDF text; summary] Monday before an audience of senior military lawyers, insisting it gives enemy combatants detained at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] "greater legal rights than are provided to lawful prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions." In a speech [prepared text] to the Judge Advocate General Corps leadership [official profiles] at the Keystone Leadership Summit [conference website] in Florida, Gonzales said

[t]he new law, consistent with history, makes clear that alien enemy combatants may not file habeas corpus petitions in the civilian courts. Yet the United States provides every detainee at Guantanamo Bay the opportunity to challenge his detention not merely before a military tribunal, but also with an unprecedented appeal to our own domestic courts.

The Act also contains important provisions to reinforce our compliance with the Geneva Conventions, and to clarify for U.S. personnel their international obligations. For instance, interrogations of prisoners have proven to be among the most vital sources of intelligence in the War on Terror, and they have saved the lives of innocent civilians in the United States and around the world. These interrogations employ tough techniques, but the techniques are safe, consistent with our values, and have been carefully reviewed to ensure compliance with the law.

The Act buttresses the President's authority under our Constitution to interpret the meaning and applicability of the Geneva Conventions for the United States. It empowers the President to provide our personnel, and particularly our interrogators, with clear and authoritative guidelines for what they must do to comply with the Geneva Conventions.

[M]any witnesses before the commissions are likely to be foreign nationals not amenable to process, and others may be unavailable because of military necessity, injury, or death. And the United States military cannot be expected to leave the battlefield to gather evidence like police officers in the course of fighting the enemy.

[JURIST] US District Judge Sim Lake on Monday sentenced former Enron [corporate website; JURIST news archive] CEO Jeffrey Skilling [Houston Chronicle profile] to 24 years in prison and determined that $45 million of Skilling's assets will be seized to be distributed to former Enron employees. Skilling, convicted [JURIST report; verdict backgrounder] in May on 19 counts of conspiracy, insider trading, and securities fraud, was charged [final redacted indictment, PDF] with providing investors with false and misleading financial information from 1999 up until Enron filed bankruptcy in late 2001.

The federal government's Enron Task Force estimated that Skilling controls up to $66 million in forfeitable assets, including at least $50 million in securities. Skilling had petitioned Lake to allow him to remain free pending his appeal [Houston Chronicle report] of his conviction, but Lake rejected that request, instead asking the US Bureau of Prisons to recommend when Skilling should begin serving the 292-month sentence. Skilling was ordered to home confinement, and will be subject to electronic surveillance, until the date when he must report to prison.

Last week, Lake vacated the conviction [JURIST report] of co-defendant Kenneth Lay, who was also convicted [JURIST report] in May on conspiracy and fraud charges [indictment, PDF] before he died suddenly [JURIST report] from a heart attack [PDF autopsy report].

The record for the largest white-collar criminal sentence is held by former Worldcom CEO Bernard Ebbers, who received 25 years [JURIST report], affirmed on appeal [JURIST report], for fraud and conspiracy connected to a $11 billion fraud scheme that drove Worldcom into bankruptcy. The Houston Chronicle has local coverage.

[JURIST] A lawyer for John W. Hinckley, Jr. [Wikipedia profile] argued Monday in the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website] that the man who shot President Ronald Reagan and three others in 1981 [PBS backgrounder] should be allowed more time away from a mental institution. Late last year, US District Judge Paul Friedman [official profile], ruled [opinion, PDF; JURIST report] that Hinckley could stay overnight with his parents in Williamsburg, VA, for four days every six weeks with supervision by the Secret Service [official website]. Friedman is considering whether to continue those visits. At Monday's hearing, Assistant US Attorney Thomas Zeno asserted that Hinckley's parents, who are in their 80s, are no longer able to provide adequate supervision, leading Friedman to suggest that Hinckley's siblings may have to replace them as custodians. Hinckley's attorney, Barry Levine, contended that the visits should be not only continued but increased because his client poses "no danger to himself or others."

Hinckley has lived at St. Elizabeths Hospital [hospital website] in Washington since he was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the shootings of Reagan, press secretary James Brady and two law enforcement officers. His doctors have said his psychosis is in remission [USA Today report]. Friedman is expected to decide whether to continue the current visits next month and to consider whether to modify the arrangements next spring. AP has more.

[JURIST] A court in Croatia [JURIST news archive] has ordered state officials to arrest parliamentarian Branimir Glavas [official profile, in Croatian; Wikipedia profile] on suspicion of war crimes commited against Serbs, including abduction, torture and murder in the eastern city of Osijek [backgrounder] in 1991-92 during Croatia's war of independence from the former Yugoslavia. Glavas, responsible at the time for the city's defense, is the highest ranking Croat official to be investigated for war crimes so far. The court's order to arrest Glavas came on the state prosecutor's third attempt to persuade the court to arrest him.

Glavas was one of the founding members of the ruling conservative HDZ party [official website; Wikipedia backgrounder], but was ousted last year by Prime Minister Ivo Sanader [SE Times profile]. The Croatian Parliament [official website, English version] granted a request in May to lift parliamentary immunity for Glavas in order to move forward with criminal proceedings. The court has not yet decided if Glavas has immunity from detention. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] The interim Thailand government installed following a military coup [JURIST report] in September indicated Monday that it will not lift martial law until supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra [BBC profile] reduce their efforts to destabilize the political structure. Defense Minister Gen. Boonrawd Somtat said that the government would not lift martial law until "there are no political undercurrents." Thaksin has denied any involvement in political unrest in Thailand; Thaksin legal advisor Noppadol Patthama said Sunday that Thaksin does not want "anything that causes divisiveness in Thailand."

Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont [official website; BBC profile] said Sunday that a decision to lift martial law must be made prudently [JURIST report] and in close consultation with security officials, but promised [JURIST report] to lift martial law "as soon as possible." Military leaders have defended martial law [JURIST report], arguing that it does not intrude on the daily lives of Thai citizens. Human rights groups and the US government [JURIST reports] have urged the interim government to revoke martial law, calling the emergency provisions and the military-sponsored interim government a threat to democracy. AP has more.

[JURIST] The federal bench trial of a lawsuit [ACLU materials; press release] challenging the 1998 Child Online Protection Act (COPA) [text] began Monday in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania [official website]. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [advocacy website] brought the suit on behalf of internet websites such as Salon.com and Nerve.com, arguing that the severe punishments outlined in COPA for publishing material considered "harmful to children" restrict free speech. COPA, which has not been enforced since its inception, mandates that commercial websites require adult users to enter some variation of an access code not available to children in order to view the websites containing pornography. The ACLU is advocating for alternative methods to prevent children from viewing the websites, such as parent-controlled filters, while the US Justice Department [official website] wants to prevent children's access to the websites altogether. The ACLU further argues that the law does nothing to prevent children from viewing content posted in other countries. The trial is expected to last four weeks.

During preparations for legal challenges to COPA, the Justice Department subpoenaed search data from popular internet search engines in an effort to extrapolate the widespread availability of pornography websites viewable by children. Google [corporate backgrounder] refused to comply with the subpoena, citing trade secret concerns rather than privacy issues. In March Judge James Ware of the US District Court for the Northern District of California [official website] granted the Justice Department limited access [JURIST report] to the Google records. AP has more.

[JURIST] A US citizen with a Canadian wife and family who was convicted of third-degree sexual abuse began serving a plea deal Monday where he must avoid the US except to meet with his parole officer. Teacher Malcolm Watson's effective exile to Canada, where he already resides, has drawn attention from immigration lawyers who question whether a US judge has the authority to banish a criminal from the country. The plea bargain, struck to avoid forcing the fifteen-year-old victim from testifying in court, has been indirectly criticized by Canadian Citizenship and Immigration Minister Monte Solberg [official website], who has been quoted as saying that if a non-citizen is deemed a threat to Canada, Canada will do all in its power to remove that citizen.

Watson was convicted of endangering the welfare of a child and third-degree sexual assault when he was discovered in April sitting in a parked car in a Cheektowaga NY mall parking lot with a fifteen-year-old student. The Toronto Globe and Mail has more.

[JURIST] A lawyer for one of Saddam Hussein's co-defendants in the so-called Anfal trial [JURIST news archive; HRW backgrounder] said Monday that he will boycott the trial when it resumes on October 30 because some 1,000 pages of his documents were stolen from the lawyer's lounge in the Iraq Supreme Court building. Badia Arif Izzat, defense lawyer for former Iraqi intelligence director Farhan al-Jubouri [TrialWatch profile], was also the target of a September raid where armed men entered his law offices and kidnapped his secretary and stole computers and files. Izzat also represents former deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz [BBC profile], who is in the custody of coalition forces [JURIST report] in Iraq.

Last week, one of Hussein's five co-defendants claimed he was beaten by US guards [JURIST report] after Hussein and the co-defendant were tossed from court [JURIST report]. Defense lawyers have been boycotting the trial [JURIST report] to protest the behavior of Chief Judge Mohammed Oreibi al-Khalifa, appointed by the Iraqi government after the original presiding judge was removed [JURIST report] last month for saying in court that Hussein was not a dictator [JURIST report]. Aljazeera has more.

[JURIST] Trevor Phillips [official profile], chairman of the UK Commission for Racial Equality [official website], warned Sunday that if communication about social differences does not improve in Britain, riots could erupt there in the wake of a religious dress [JURIST news archive] debate prompted by comments from House of Commons leader Jack Straw [official profile] and the suspension of a Muslim UK teacher for wearing a full-face veil - a niqab [Wikipedia backgrounder] - in the classroom. In an editorial [text] in the Sunday Times, Phillips wrote:

There is a danger that increasingly we are so afraid to speak to each other about our differences that nobody can say what they mean and nobody can hear what is meant.

So I welcome the debate. The problem with it so far is that it has been conducted in the wrong place between the wrong people and about the wrong things. I had no concerns about Jack Straw's initial careful expression of concern about the wearing of the veil in his surgery [constituency office]. After all, this was as much a comment about him and his generation as it was about the niqab. It may be that people like Straw have greater difficulty coping with the social gap that not seeing someone's face undoubtedly creates; for the internet generation, who can conduct entire relationships through a computer screen, this may not be quite the same kind of barrier. Either way, it was entirely reasonable for him to express his discomfort.

Straw's comments could have liberated us to say that sometimes we don't like the way others behave, without turning it into an accusation about their faith or race. The so-called Muslim leaders who initially attacked Straw were wrong. They were overly defensive and need to accept that in a diverse society we should be free to make polite requests of this kind....

We must celebrate our differences, but if that is all we do we ignore the feelings of the many millions of every race, faith and culture for whom the frictions of diversity are much more evident than its benefits. No amount of lecturing from comfortable middle-class liberals will brush away the anxiety felt in many of our towns and cities.

If we don’t talk about this honestly, we have seen in this country, in Holland, in France and in the United States what happens next. In 1963 the great African-American writer James Baldwin quoted an old spiritual in a famous essay, correctly predicting the civil strife that was to come: “God gave Noah the rainbow sign, Said no more water, but the fire next time.”

[JURIST] UN Legal Counsel Nicolas Michel [official profile] has submitted a final draft to the Lebanese government and the UN Security Council of a plans to establish an international tribunal [JURIST report] to investigate the death of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri [JURIST news archive], according to an unnamed source, who noted that the Security Council could approve the draft by the end of the week. The details of the draft plan are largely unknown, though Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora [BBC profile] was quoted Monday as saying that the draft was final and that it dropped controversial "crimes against humanity" charges. Michel has previously said that any tribunal will likely be held outside of Lebanon [JURIST report], and that factors such as impartiality and safety of witnesses and judges will determine its location.

The UN Security Council voted in June to extend the mandate [press release; JURIST report] of the UN commission [UN materials] probing the Hariri assassination for an additional year, until mid-June 2007. Previous probe reports have implicated Syrian officials in the assassination [JURIST report], where a February 14, 2005 explosion on the Beirut waterfront killed the then-PM along with 22 others. AFP has more.