[JURIST] Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York [official website] has asked that the financial institutions being sued by and counter-suing bankrupt Italian dairy giant Parmalat SpA [corporate website; JURIST news archive] negotiate a settlement with the company and has adjourned discovery proceedings until December 31st, Parmalat announced [press release, PDF] Wednesday. Parmalat’s stock rose by 4.8 percent to 3.04 euros ($3.90) on the Milan Stock Exchange following the news.

Parmalat filed for insolvency in December 2003, with about $17.3 billion of debt, after realizing there was a massive $4.9 billion discrepancy in its books. It later initiated suits against various group both in the US and Italy, including Bank of America [corporate website; JURIST report] and Citigroup [corporate website; JURIST report], as well its former auditors [press release, PDF] for their roles in the company’s economic collapse. Bank of America has pursued a counterclaim [JURIST report] charging Parmalat and its former management with fraud, misrepresentation, conspiracy and other illegal acts, and allege that the lawsuit is simply trying to shift the blame from the culprit to the victims of the fraud. AP has more.

[JURIST] Supreme Court offices in the Democratic Republic of Congo [JURIST news archive] will be decentralized and spread to various parts of the capital city of Kinshasa, or even to other Congolese cities, following fire damage to one-third of the building earlier in the week, according to a statement from DRC Vice-President Azarias Ruberwa [campaign website, in French; Wikipedia profile] Wednesday. The building was set on fire [JURIST report] Tuesday by supporters of another of Congo's four vice-presidents, Jean-Pierre Bemba [campaign website, in French; Wikipedia profile], who is challenging his loss [JURIST report] in the presidential election to incumbent DRC President Joseph Kabila [BBC profile; PPRD party website, in French] amid allegations of voter fraud [JURIST report].

The rioters were demanding to be allowed into the Supreme Court building so that they could witness a hearing on the voter fraud complaint filed by Bemba after preliminary counts determined that he lost to Kabila by a margin of 16 percent. A number of election-related documents were damaged in the fire, including results of the country's constitutional referendum [JURIST report], and the first round results of the presidential election. The challenged second round results that are currently being reviewed by the high court were unharmed. IRIN has more.

5:15 PM ET - A senior Congolese official said Wednesday that in view of the fire the deadline for the Supreme Court's ruling on Bemba's legal challenge would be delayed. Under current law, the high court has seven days to rule on a complaint, but Azarias Ruberwa, one of the DRC's four vice-presidents, did not specify what the new deadline would be. AP has more.

[JURIST] An Iraqi general and three senior officers have been arrested on accusations of corruption, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Salam al-Zawba'i [PDF profile - see p.10] told Reuters Wednesday. Although the reported arrest has not been confirmed by the US military or the Iraqi Defense Ministry, al-Zawba'i said Major General Abdul Jalil Khalaf Shuweil, in charge of troops in Kadhimiya, a suburb northwest of Baghdad, and three others were arrested by US forces Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) [official website] released its latest periodic human rights report [text] Wednesday, noting as first reported last month [JURIST report] that approximately 3,000 members of the Iraqi Interior Ministry have been removed from their posts due to allegations of human rights abuses and corruption. Corruption has been a major problem in Iraq [JURIST news archive] since the US invasion; earlier this month, a report by Transparency International ranked Iraq as one of the world's four most-corrupt countries [JURIST report]. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] A federal judge in New Orleans Wednesday rejected [order, PDF] a bid to have all federal lawsuits [consolidated litigation website] against Merck & Co. [corporate website] brought in connection with the withdrawn painkiller Vioxx [JURIST news archive] consolidated in a single national class action against the company. US District Judge Eldon Fallon [JURIST news archive], who is responsible for co-ordinating pre-trial procedures [JURIST report] in the federal cases, said it made more sense to have the cases tried in their respective states of origin, but did not rule on specific state-based class actions.

The suggested national class action would have proceeded under the laws of New Jersey, where Merck has its worldwide headquarters. There are currently some 7000 federal complaints against Merck in connection with Vioxx, including some 160 class actions. Merck pulled Vioxx from the market in September 2004 after a study showed that it could double the risk of heart attack or stroke if taken for more than 18 months. Merck has set aside $1 billion to fight every Vioxx court challenge. AP has more.

[JURIST] Rwandan President Paul Kagame [official website; BBC profile] Wednesday derided the recommendation of French anti-terrorism judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere [BBC profile] that he stand trial for the 1994 killing of former president Juvenal Habyarimana [Wikipedia profile] as "bullying and arrogant." Kagame has denied involvement [JURIST report] in shooting down the plane that carried Habyarimana, leading to the former president's death, which in turn sparked the country's genocide [HRW backgrounder; BBC backgrounder] in which some 800,000 people died. Speaking at a meeting on Wednesday, Kagame said "That some judge in France whose name I cannot even pronounce has something to say about Rwanda - trying a president and some government officials - that's rubbish!"

Although French law does not permit a warrant to be issued for Kagame's arrest because he has diplomatic immunity as a head of state, sources say Bruguiere had written to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan [official profile] asking for Kagame to face trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) [official website; JURIST news archive]. On Tuesday, the defense lawyers association at the ICTR requested that prosecutors immediately start legal proceedings [Hirondelle report] against Kagame on war crimes charges. Last month, the ICTR denied a request to hear testimony from Bruguiere who was expected to implicate Kagame for ordering the attack on Habyarimana. The tribunal has also refused to give a 1997 UN report to Bruguiere which allegedly discusses Kagame's involvement in the former president's murder.

Meanwhile, French prosecutors have authorized arrest warrants for nine senior Rwandan officials who Bruguiere claims were involved in Habyarimana's death. The list includes Rwandan Armed Forces [Wikipedia backgrounder] chief James Kabarebe, army chief of staff Charles Kayonga, and other officials with close contact to Kagame, according to French court officials speaking on the condition of anonymity. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] An Italian judge Wednesday refused the request of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] to have one of the judges removed from presiding over his tax fraud trial. Berlusconi and co-defendant David Mills [Guardian profile] had asked Judge Edoardo d'Avossa to remove himself [JURIST report] from the current trial, citing d'Avossa's involvement with other Berlusconi trials, including the "Medusa" case, which resulted in the former prime minister's acquittal on false accounting charges. D'Avossa had offered to step aside, but a supervisory judge rejected that offer on Wednesday.

In July, an Italian judge ruled [JURIST report] that Berlusconi should stand trial on charges of embezzlement, false accounting, tax fraud and money laundering in connection with a TV rights deal involving Berlusconi's company, Mediaset [corporate website]. In October, an Italian court ordered [JURIST report] Berlusconi and Mills, a British lawyer, to face an additional trial to begin in March 2007. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] A coalition of advocacy groups filed a lawsuit [complaint, PDF] in Florida Tuesday claiming that officials in Sarasota County failed to investigate or report various alleged malfunctions with the touch-screen voting machines and are calling for a re-vote in Florida's hotly-contested 13th Congressional District. People for the American Way, Voter Action, the ACLU of Florida and the Electronic Frontier Foundation [advocacy websites] took the action on behalf of Republican and Democratic voters challenging the election of Republican Vern Buchanan [campaign website] to the US House of Representatives by a margin of 369 votes over Democrat Christine Jennings [campaign website]. The results were formally certified on Monday. The seat was formerly held by Katherine Harris (R-FL) [official website], Florida Secretary of State during the notorious 2000 presidential recount, who lost her Senate bid [campaign website].

The complaint alleges that a re-vote is needed because legal votes cast in Sarasota County [official website] were improperly rejected by malfunctioning electronic voting machines [JURIST report] on election day. According to the suit

no vote was recorded on any congressional candidate on approximately 18,000 electronic ballots cast on ES&S iVotronic voting machines...nearly 25 percent of all electronic ballots and approximately 13 percent of all ballots, paper and electronic. By treating these ballots as "undervotes" in the 13th Congressional election, the Sarasota Country Canvassing Board rejected thousands of legal votes sufficient to place in doubt the result of the election.

[JURIST] Torture and ill-treatment in Russia is regularly used to extract confessions from suspects [AI press release], according to a report [text] released Wednesday by Amnesty International [advocacy website]. Noting that Russia was in violation of its national and international obligations, the human rights group found that Russian police regularly engage in the mistreatment of suspects and that "lawyers are not present during questioning of suspects in detention; relatives are not informed of their detention; suspects are tortured by police officers or left at the mercy of convicts who do the torturing for the police; [and] the victims are denied a medical examination by a doctor of their choice." Allegations into torture and ill-treatment are rarely investigated and those held to be responsible are rarely prosecuted. In 2005, official investigations found evidence of torture in only 33 out of 114 arguable cases of torture. Amnesty also expressed concern over Russia's reliance on torture to extract confessions by police officers who are anxious to solve a certain number of crimes. Russian NGOs in 2005 found medical evidence of 100 cases of torture in 11 of Russia's 89 regions.

Amnesty recommended that Russia establish a system for unannounced inspections of detention centers by credible impartial investigators, that Russia sign and ratify the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture [text], and that the government improve police officer training, including in human rights protection. The New York Times has more. BBC News has additional coverage.

[JURIST] The US Justice Department has withdrawn its notice of appeal of a federal judge's decision to vacate the conviction [PDF text; JURIST report] of former Enron founder Ken Lay [Houston Chronicle profile; JURIST news archive]. Lay, convicted [JURIST report] in May of fraud and conspiracy charges [indictment, PDF] for providing investors with false and misleading financial information from 1999 up until Enron [JURIST news archive] filed bankruptcy in late 2001, died suddenly [JURIST report] of a heart attack in July. Lay died before his sentencing date and therefore was not afforded an opportunity to exhaust the appeals process, and no final judgment was issued in the case. US District Judge Sim vacated the conviction and dismissed Lay's indictment under the "doctrine of abatement," which allows federal courts to vacate convictions of criminal defendants that die pending appeal. Federal prosecutors had filed papers indicating a planned appeal to the US Court of Appeals to the Fifth Circuit, but withdrew the notice of appeal Monday.

A DOJ official noted that the decision not to appeal was made after legislation was introduced in Congress to modify the abatement doctrine. Last week, US Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) [official website], who previously urged the DOJ to appeal [letter, PDF; JURIST report] Lake's decision, introduced legislation [press release] that would "clarify the legal procedures that should be applied when criminal defendants, such as former Enron CEO Kenneth Lay, die after they have been duly convicted, but before their appeals are final." The proposal, drafted in conjunction with the Justice Department, would:

Establish that, if a defendant dies after being convicted of a federal offense, his conviction will not be vacated. Instead, the court will be directed to issue a statement stating that the defendant was convicted (either by a guilty plea or a verdict finding him guilty) but then died before his case or appeal was final.

Codify the current rule that no further criminal punishments can be imposed on a person who is convicted if they die before a sentence is imposed or they have an opportunity to appeal their conviction.

Clarify that, unlike criminal punishment, all other relief (such as restitution to the victims) that could have been sought against a convicted defendant can continue to be pursued and collected after the defendant's death.

Establish a process to ensure that after a person dies, a representative of his estate can stand in the shoes of the defendant and challenge or appeal his conviction if they want, and can also secure a lawyer - either on their own or by having one appointed.