[JURIST] In a controversial meeting late Saturday the Lebanese cabinet of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora [BBC profile] renewed its agreement to the terms of a UN-supported international tribunal [JURIST news archive] to try suspects accused of assassinating former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005. The approval came over the objections of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud [official website], the militant Shiite Hezbollah movement and other pro-Syrian factions, and in the midst of a growing national crisis [JURIST report] that threatens to throw the entire country back into civil war in a week that saw the assassination [BBC report] of anti-Syrian Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel. Last-minute efforts at compromise with dissenting groups failed despite offers from Siniora to delay the vote for "a few days" if six pro-Hezbollah ministers would return to the Cabinet and the pro-Syrian bloc would commit to the formation of a tribunal. Siniora denied, however, that the cabinet's decision was meant as a "provocation." In a statement he said it "is in fact based on Lebanese unanimity on the creation of this tribunal and the Lebanese who are yearning to protect Lebanon, bolster its democratic freedoms and national security and bring it out of the cycle of killings and assassinations."

An initial cabinet approval [JURIST report] of the tribunal was rejected [JURIST report] by Lahoud earlier this month as "unconstitutional" because it lacked a quorum of Shiite lawmakers. Lahoud released a statement Saturday calling the latest cabinet action "null and void." The next step in the Lebanese legal endorsement of the tribunal is unclear; the only person who can put it on the agenda for necessary parliamentary action is Nabih Berri [official profile], the Lebanese parliament's speaker and head of the pro-Syrian Amal Party [party website, in Arabic], who has supported the President's stance. AP has more. From Beirut, the Daily Star has a background report.

[JURIST] Former Abu Ghraib [JURIST news archive] commander Janis Karpinski [JURIST news archive] has repeated her claim that outgoing US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld [official profile] personally ordered "making prisoners stand for long periods, sleep deprivation ... playing music at full volume" and so on at the now infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Karpinski told Spanish newspaper El Pais [media website] in an interview [transcript] published Saturday that she saw a memorandum ordering the use of these methods, which rights groups and others consider torture [JURIST news archive] in violation of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war. The letter was allegedly signed by Rumsfeld with the handwritten words, "make sure this is accomplished." Karpinski, who claims to have been unaware of the abuses at Abu Ghraib until pictures surfaced in the press, earlier alleged [JURIST report] the existence of the memo in an interview [text] with law professor Marjorie Cohn, now president of the National Lawyers Guild, in August 2005. The former Army Brigadier General has also charged that Rumsfeld further violated the Geneva Convention by "ordering us to hold [a] prisoner without registering him... on various occasions."

Karpinski, the only high-ranking military officer to be punished in connection with the abuse scandal [JURIST report], alleged early last year that the interrogation techniques were approved by top US officials [recorded audio; JURIST report] and has testified to that effect [PDF] in support of a recent bid to have the German federal prosecutor bring war crimes charges [JURIST report] against Rumsfeld and others under German universal jurisdiction laws. According to that testimony:

[a Sergeant at Abu Ghraib] pointed out a memo posted on a column just outside of their small administrative office. The memorandum was signed by the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, and it discussed Authorized Interrogation techniques including use of loud music and prolonged standing positions, amongst several other techniques. It was one page. It mentioned stress positions, noise and light discipline, the use of music, disrupting sleep patterns, those types of techniques. There was also a handwritten note out to the side in the same ink and in the same script as the signature of the Secretary of Defense. The notation written in the margin said “Make sure this happens!” This memorandum was a copy; a photocopy of the original, I would imagine. I thought it was unusual for an interrogation memorandum to be posted inside of a detention cell block, because interrogations were not conducted in the cell block, at least to my understanding and knowledge. Interrogations were conducted in one of the two interrogation facilities outside of the hard site.

This was the command of Donald Rumsfeld himself talking about the specific interrogation techniques he was authorizing. And there was the note – the handwritten note out to the side. It said, "Make sure this happens." And it seemed to be in the same handwriting as the signature. And people understood it to be from Rumsfeld. This is all of what I can say about the memorandum.

[JURIST] Loyalist militant Michael Stone [CNN profile] was charged Saturday with 5 counts of attempted murder after he threw a package of explosives into the entrance of the Stormont parliament buildings [virtual tour] in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on Friday and attempted to force his way past security guards. The recently-reconstituted Northern Ireland Assembly [official website] was in session at the time, meeting to move forward the critical process of selecting a new First Minister for the troubled United Kingdom region, when the attack took place. Stone's declared targets were unionist Sinn Fein [party website] leaders Gerry Adams [BBC profile; Sinn Fein profile] and Martin McGuiness [BBC profile], Sinn Fein's chief negotiator. Stone has also been charged with possession of items likely to be used in terrorist activity such as explosives and other weapons. He was released from life imprisonment six years ago under the 1988 Good Friday peace agreement [text]. His prior incarceration resulted from an attack on an IRA funeral 20 years ago in 1988.

In July 2005, the IRA announced that it was ending its "armed campaign" [JURIST report] for the independence of Northern Ireland from Britain in favor of a political process. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] A Yemeni court has convicted Kamal al-Aalafi, editor-in-chief of the al-Rai al-Aam [official website, in Arabic] newspaper, and sentenced him to one year in jail for violating Article 103 of the Press and Publications Law of 1990 [official text] as punishment for publishing offensive cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad [JURIST news archive]. The weekly paper has additionally been closed for six months. Earlier this year the government of Yemen charged two other editors [JURIST report] of other newspapers with the same crime. Islamic law strictly prohibits portraying any image of the Prophet Muhammad.

The cartoons depicting the Prophet originally appeared in a Danish newspaper in September 2005. They initially went unnoticed but violent protests erupted around the world [JURIST report] in February 2006 when they were republished. AFP has more.

[JURIST] A scheduled Saturday meeting of the Lebanese cabinet on the establishment of an international tribunal [JURIST news archive] to try suspects in the February 2005 assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri has thrown Lebanon into crisis again even before it has taken place. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora [BBC profile] called the meeting after pro-Syrian Lebanese President Emile Lahoud rejected [JURIST report] an earlier cabinet approval [JURIST report] of the court as "unconstitutional" on the grounds that a quorum of Shiite ministers was not present. The move nonetheless met with immediate disapproval from leading Shiite lawmakers, including Nabih Berri [official profile], the speaker of the Lebanese parliament and head of the pro-Syrian Amal Party [party website, in Arabic], who said it lacked the President's endorsement. Siniora has offered to postpone the meeting "for a few days" if Berri's party and Shiite militant movement Hezbollah commit to ratifying the court plan, but a government minister said that if they didn't respond positively, the meeting would go ahead. Hezbollah officials have said they support the tribunal, but say Siniora is using the tribunal issue to sideline them. AFP has more.

The UN Security Council approved the terms [JURIST report] of the UN-supported tribunal earlier this week in the immediate aftermath of Tuesday's assassination [BBC report] of anti-Syrian Lebanese Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel. The proposal previously agreed upon by Annan and the Lebanese government after the Lebanese cabinet's initial meeting must still be formally approved by the Lebanese parliament and ratified by Lebanon's president. Syria has said in a letter to the UN that it will continue to co-operate in the Hariri investigation but objects [AP report] to what it considers premature establishment of a tribunal with which it has "no connection." Preliminary reports by the UN commission investigating the Hariri killing have already implicated Syrian officials [JURIST report].

[JURIST] The New York Times [media website] asked the US Supreme Court [official website] Friday to block a federal investigation into a terrorism probe leak from acquiring the telephone records of two Times reporters until the high court rules on a certiorari petition in the case. A Chicago grand jury is seeking to identify the sources that leaked information of the US government's pending action against two Islamic charities in 2001. The Times filed suit after US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald attempted to obtain records of phone conversations involving Judith Miller [JURIST news archive] and Philip Shenon directly from their telecom providers. In August, the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals [official site] ruled [JURIST report] 2-1 in favor of the government, stating that the interests of law enforcement outweigh the reporters' constitutional protections under the First Amendment [text].

The Supreme Court has not addressed the question of protecting journalists' confidential sources since 1972. Judith Miller has previously been a subject [JURIST report] of a federal grand jury investigation regarding the identity leak [JURIST news archive] of CIA covert operative Valerie Plame. She was imprisoned for 85 days for failing to reveal her sources and has since left the Times. The New York Times has more.

[JURIST] Officials with the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) [official website] said Saturday that a meeting of the tribunal's judges [press release, PDF] convened to consider Draft Internal Rules [rules text] for pending genocide trials of former Khmer Rouge [JURIST news archive] leaders had failed to reach agreement on the regulations and that further meetings would be necessary. The rules cover every phase of the trials including investigation procedures, trial motions, appeals, and role of the parties involved with the trial. The disagreements on the rules, which have also been targeted by a number of rights groups, primarily center in how to integrate Cambodian law into international tribunal standards. Earlier this week, Amnesty International recommended that discussions on the rules be extended [press release], claiming that the draft regulations inadequately protected victims and witnesses, made only vague provision for reparations, and did not fully incorporate prohibitions against trials in absentia. The genocide trials are nonetheless still expected to begin in 2007 [JURIST report].

The ECCC was established by a 2001 law [PDF text] to investigate and try those responsible for the 1975-79 Cambodian genocide that led to the deaths of at least 1.5 million Cambodians by execution, forced hardships or starvation in the so-called "Killing Fields." To date, no top Khmer Rouge officials have faced trial and questions have been raised concerning exactly how many of the Khmer Rouge's top officials will face the tribunal, as several of those responsible for the genocide have died [JURIST report] in recent months and others are in failing health. The prosecutors nonetheless face significant administrative, legal and linguistic obstacles in preparing cases for trial; their formal investigations only began in July [JURIST report].