[JURIST] A US federal jury in Louisiana Monday awarded $2.8 million in damages and penalties to an Allstate Insurance Co. [corporate website] policyholder in the second federal lawsuit to go to trial involving Louisiana homeowners affected by the Hurricane Katrina disaster [JURIST news archive]. Homeowners Robert and Merryl Weiss sued Allstate for bad faith, alleging that the insurance carrier did not correctly adjust their claim and underpaid them for the structural damage to their home. Allstate contended that they properly paid the couple $29,483 for the damage to the home and $14,787 for living expenses, since most of the damage was caused by the hurricane's storm surge and thus did not fall under the Weiss' hurricane policy. After conflicting expert testimony about the height of the storm surge and the strength of the winds, the jury found that the damage was caused by wind and was covered under the policy. A $1.5 million penalty was assessed for Allstate's delayed payment of the claim. The Weiss' have already received $350,000 in federal flood insurance. The jury also rejected Allstate's assertion that the Weiss' had voided their policy by misrepresenting their claim after attempting to claim at least $34,000 in damages for a boathouse that allegedly was not located on the insured property during the hurricane. AP has more.

In February, homeowners in the first federal insurance trial brought by Louisiana homeowners [JURIST report] abruptly dropped their suit after Allstate alleged they misrepresented their claims. There are 350 lawsuits pending in Mississippi against insurance companies over the issue of whether insurance policies should cover water damage when the policies, as written, cover wind damage created by a hurricane, but not water damage by "wind-driven surge."

[JURIST] Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] military prison detainee Abu Zubaydah [BBC profile] denied accusations of al-Qaeda involvement and made allegations of torture, according to a transcript [PDF] released Monday of his March 27 testimony before a US Combatant Status Review Tribunal [DOD materials]. Zubaydah, a Palestinian, testified that from 1994 until approximately 2000, he worked at guest houses in Pakistan that were affiliated with the Khalden "defensive" jihadist training camp in Afghanistan. He asserted, however, that the camp was not connected to al-Qaeda but that it existed to train fighters to defend Muslim countries from invasion, and that he opposed attacking non-military targets. Zubaydah also said that he made false confessions as a result of torture before his transfer to Guantanamo, and that he was not an associate of Osama bin Laden. He said he was an enemy of the US, but not an enemy combatant [CFR backgrounder], and that he never supported, financially or otherwise, any attack against the US.

Last September Zubaydah was transferred to Guantanamo [JURIST report] as one of 14 "high value" terror suspects [DNI profiles, PDF] potentially eligible for trial by military commission [JURIST news archive]. September 11 mastermind [JURIST report] Khalid Sheikh Mohammed [BBC profile] was among the detainees. Their CSRT hearings have been closed to the press [JURIST report], but the Department of Defense has released transcripts of 12 of the 13 hearings held to date. Zubaydah has been in custody since 2002 and was held in a secret CIA prison [JURIST report] before his transfer. AP has more.

[JURIST] The US Senate Judiciary Committee [official website] Monday postponed [official notice] until Thursday the scheduled Tuesday testimony of US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales [official profile; JURIST news archive] regarding his role in the firings of eight US Attorneys [JURIST news archive] in the wake of Monday's Virginia Polytechnic Institute shootings [New York Times report] that left 33 people dead and wounded at least 15 others. Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) [official website] and senior Republican member Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) [official website] issued a joint statement [text] moving the hearing. Leahy said Gonzales was included in discussions of the postponement, and that the decision was made out of respect for the victims and to allow Gonzales to focus his attention on the unfolding events.

Earlier this month Leahy rejected attempts [JURIST report] by the Bush administration to move up the date of Gonzales' testimony because Gonzales himself chose the April 17 date. A Department of Justice [official website] spokeswoman said Monday that Gonzales is anxious to testify. AP has more.

[JURIST] A Russian court Monday upheld a decision [JURIST report] to move former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky [advocacy website, JURIST news archive] from a Siberian penal colony to a Moscow prison while officials investigate new charges of money laundering [JURIST report]. The ruling also applies to Khodorkovsky's business partner Platon Lebedev [advocacy website], who faces embezzlement and money laundering charges. Defense lawyers welcomed the decision, saying it would make trial proceedings easier as most of the witnesses and evidence were in Moscow.

Khodorkovsky was convicted of tax evasion [JURIST report] in May 2005, and is now serving an eight year prison term. Prosecutors filed additional money laundering charges against him in February 2007 based on allegations that Khodorkovsky used his Open Russia Foundation [SourceWatch backgrounder] to divert oil revenues away from Yukos. If convicted on the new charges, Khodorkovsky could serve up to fifteen more years in prison. Khodorkovsky has insisted that the charges against him are politically motivated [JURIST report]. AP has more.

[JURIST] British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende [official websites] Monday criticized efforts to create a new constitution [JURIST news archive] for the European Union [official website], saying in a joint press conference [transcript] in London that member states could be better served simply by amending existing treaties. Blair also expressed concern that an entirely new constitution might take power away from national governments and consolidate it into one "super state." Instead, Blair and Balkenende suggested a treaty to amend current agreements to clarify the division of powers between the European Commission (EC) [official website] and member states and to expand the role of national parliaments.

Currently, the European Union member states have a series of international treaties [EU backgrounder] that effectively function as the Union's constitution; efforts to codify these treaties within a single document have so far been unsuccessful. In 2004, EU member states signed the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe [text], a draft constitution later rejected by French and Dutch voters. Earlier this month, EU leaders celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the European Union by signing a declaration [JURIST report] aimed at revitalizing efforts to pass a European charter. The German government, which holds the six-month EU rotating presidency [German presidency official website], is expected to offer a plan for the adoption of a new constitutional treaty in June at the end of its term. BBC News has more.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] heard oral arguments [transcript, PDF] Monday in Long Island Care At Home v. Coke [Duke Law case backgrounder; merit briefs], 06-593 [docket], in which the Court considered whether a 1975 US Labor Department exemption rule that eliminates overtime for "companionship services" contravenes congressional intent to provide overtime in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) [PDF text]. Evelyn Coke, a retired home care worker, sued her former employer, Long Island Care At Home, for over 20 years of overtime, for which she says she was not paid or paid only minimum wage. The Labor Department rule in question overrides the FLSA requirement that overtime workers be paid "time and a half" compensation. A decision for Coke would result in countless lawsuits to recover back overtime and billions of dollars in expenses for the home care industry and the US government, which could in turn prohibitively raise prices for the care of retirees, a point raised by Associate Justice Stephen Breyer [OYEZ profile]. The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit struck down the rule [opinion, PDF] in 2004, finding it violated congressional intent for the FLSA to provide overtime compensation to employees. AP has more.

The Court also heard oral arguments [transcript, PDF] in Powerex Corp. v. Reliant Energy Services [Duke Law case backgrounder; merit briefs], 05-85 [docket], where the Court examined whether a corporation owned by a foreign state through another entity and used to fulfill that state's international treaty obligations can be denied status as an "organ of a foreign state" under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 [text]. Powerex sought to remove the case to federal court, claiming it is an instrumentality of a foreign nation because it is a subsidiary of a crown corporation of the Canadian province of British Columbia. In 2004, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled [opinion, PDF] that Powerex was not an organ of a foreign state because it was not run by the government, did not receive government funding, and was not staffed with government employees.

[JURIST] The Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website; JURIST news archive] Monday publicly rejected allegations that it had negotiated or sought a deal with Belgrade officials to conceal documents relating to the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro [ICJ docket; JURIST report] in the International Court of Justice. Last week former ICTY prosecutor Geoffrey Nice sent a letter to the Zagreb daily Jutarnji List accusing [B92 report] Chief ICTY Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte [official profile] of striking a deal with former Serbian Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic [Wikipedia profile] to apply protective measures based on national security to the country's Supreme Defense Council archive of documents. According to Nice, the prosecutors in the case against former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic [JURIST news archive] never gained access to the documents because of the deal. Nice said that the deal allowed Serbia to escape direct responsibility for genocide. His letter echoed an earlier report [JURIST report] in the New York Times. The OTP rejected such claims Monday, saying the International Court of Justice (ICJ) [official website] never requested the documents and asserted that the OTP has no control over which documents are granted protection for national security.

The ICJ ruled [press release] in February that during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war [Wikipedia backgrounder], Serbia failed to meet its obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention [text] to prevent genocide, but was not itself directly responsible for genocide. The OTP has more.

[JURIST] Russian Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika [official website, in Russian] submitted a request to the UK Home Office [official website] on Monday to revoke the asylum status of Russian business billionaire Boris Berezovsky [MosNews profile]. Chaika also repeated previous requests for the UK to extradite Berezovsky, who has been charged with plotting a coup against Russian President Vladimir Putin [official website] based on Berezovsky's comments that the current Russian government can only be changed by force.

British police began an investigation Friday into whether the comments violate UK law after the Russian government renewed its call for Berezovsky's extradition [JURIST report]. The Russian prosecutor general suspended [JURIST report] its investigation of Berezovsky on charges of plotting a coup against Putin in January. Berezovsky, who fled to the UK in 2000, obtained political asylum in 2003 and is currently living in London. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Seoul District Court in South Korea sentenced five people to jail Monday for spying for North Korea [JURIST news archives]. Group ringleader Korean-American Michael Jang received a nine-year sentence for encouraging anti-US sentiment in South Korea under orders from North Korea in 2005. Jang initiated contact with North Korean agents in 1998 and first established a spy ring to pass secret information to North Korea in 2002. The other group members were sentenced to between four and six year terms for violating an anti-communist National Security Law.

The group was indicted [AP report] by South Korean officials last December in what has been labeled the largest spy case since the two countries began reconciliation at a North-South summit in 2000 [CNN report]. North Korea has accused the case of being a plot by pro-US forces to bolster anti-North Korean feelings in the south. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] The trial of Jose Padilla [JURIST news archive] and two co-defendants on terrorism charges [indictment, PDF] began Monday with jury selection. Defense attorneys have expressed concern that potential jurors may have been tainted by early accusations that Padilla had planned to set off a radioactive "dirty bomb" [NRC factsheet], an allegation not among the charges against Padilla, and that jurors might associate the defendants with the Sept. 11 attacks. US District Judge Marcia Cooke [official profile] has instructed prosecutors to only refer to Sept. 11 in a limited manner [AP report], but barred them from implying that Padilla or his co-defendants were involved.

Last week, Cooke refused to dismiss the terror charges based on Padilla's allegations that he was tortured [JURIST reports]. Padilla, a US citizen, was arrested in 2002 at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport and subsequently detained as an "enemy combatant" at a Navy military brig in Charleston, South Carolina. Initially accused of planning to set off a "dirty bomb" in the United States, Padilla went from enemy combatant to criminal defendant when he was finally charged [JURIST report] in November 2005 on unrelated counts of conspiracy to murder US nationals and supporting terrorist activity. He was transferred to civilian custody [JURIST report] in January 2006 and has pleaded not guilty [JURIST report] to the charges. In February, Padilla was ruled competent to stand trial [JURIST report]. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] The governor of St. Petersburg has ordered an investigation into allegations of human rights violations during a Sunday rally opposing the policies of Russian President Vladimir Putin [official website], according to a Monday press statement. Police arrested dozens of protesters [JURIST report] Sunday before and during the rally in St. Petersburg, just one day after some 200 anti-Putin protesters, including liberal United Civil Front [party website, in Russian] leader and former chess champion Garry Kasparov [official website, in Russian], were detained [JURIST report] at a similar rally in Moscow.

A city interior department spokesperson said authorities detained about 120 protesters Sunday in addition to about 250 demonstrators detained Saturday. RIA Novosti has more.

[JURIST] Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] said Monday that insurgents in Afghanistan [JURIST news archive] are committing an increasing number of war crimes [report text; press release] by launching attacks targeting civilians. In a 116-page report entitled "The Human Cost: The Consequences of Insurgent Attacks in Afghanistan", HRW found that in 2006 669 civilians died as a result of attacks by the Taliban, Hezb-e Islami [GlobalSecurity backgrounder] and other insurgent forces, making it "the deadliest year for civilians in Afghanistan" since Taliban rule ended in 2001. HRW relied on records from both the media and NGOs in compiling its report. AP has more.

In March, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) [advocacy website] urged the US and Afghan governments [JURIST report] to establish a better legal framework to guide US military actions in the fight against the Taliban, criticizing US forces for civilian deaths in Afghanistan. The AIHRC's comments came after HRW criticized US forces [HRW report] for the deaths of over 20 civilians in recent months.

[JURIST] The Supreme Court of Nigeria [official website] ruled unanimously Monday that Nigerian Vice President Atiku Abubakar [official website; JURIST news archive] should not have been barred from running in the country's April 21 presidential election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) [official website]. Specifically, the court held that the Nigerian Court of Appeal [official website] incorrectly ruled [JURIST report] earlier this month that the INEC had the right to disqualify presidential candidates for fraud. INEC removed Abubakar's name from the ballot because he was indicted on corruption charges [JURIST report] in March, along with his political rival Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo [BBC profile], for diverting money to private interests. Abubakar then filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] against the INEC challenging its decision to bar his candidacy. Electoral officials could not immediately confirm to AP Monday whether Saturday's presidential ballots would contain Abubakar's name.

Last Saturday's elections for governors and state officials in Nigeria [JURIST news archive] were marred by violence and accusations of fraud [JURIST report], which has worried observers in advance of this coming Saturday's presidential election [BBC report]. AP has more.

[JURIST] Former Macedonian Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski and his former bodyguard Johan Tarculovski went on trial [press release] Monday at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website; JURIST news archive]. The two men, the only Macedonians indicted by the ICTY, are charged [amended indictment, PDF; case backgrounder, PDF] with murdering seven ethnic Albanian civilians in the village of Ljuboten [HRW backgrounder] during a 2001 conflict between local ethnic Albanian guerrillas and Macedonian government security forces. Tarculovski is accused of directing the attack on the village. As interior minister, Boskovski is accused of having command and control over the armed forces at the time of the alleged massacre. Both men deny the charges.

Boskovski and Tarculovski surrendered [JURIST report] to the ICTY in 2005 after being charged with war crimes. Boskovski has also been in prison for charges relating to the murder of seven immigrants while he was the interior minister in 2002. BBC News has more.

[JURIST] Arafat Rahman, the son of former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Khaleda Zia [Virtual Bangladesh profile], was arrested Monday on corruption allegations, according to local media. Zia's elder son Tarique Rahman [party profile, in Bengali] was also arrested on arrested [JURIST report] corruption charges last month in Dhaka. Tarique, a senior member in the Bangladesh Nationalist Party [party website], was widely expected to succeed his mother, who stepped down at the end of her term last October to make way for the interim government. Unlike Tarique, Arafat was not involved in politics.

In recent weeks, security forces have arrested more than 60 politicians [JURIST news archive], mostly members of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Awami League [party website]. Corruption watchdog group Transparency International [advocacy website] lists Bangladesh among the world's most corrupt nations. Bangladeshi President Iajuddin Ahmed [official profile] declared a national state of emergency [JURIST report] on January 11 in the face of unrest over upcoming national elections and later cancelled a scheduled national poll. The interim military-backed government has delayed general elections until the end of 2008. BBC News has more.

[JURIST] A Croatian county court in Osijek issued indictments Monday for seven persons, including a former parliamentarian, on charges of war crimes committed against Serbs, including abduction, torture and murder, during Croatia's war of independence from the former Yugoslavia. Prosecutors charged opposition lawmaker and former member of the ruling party Branimir Glavas [official profile, in Croatian; Trial Watch profile] with ordering the killing of 10 Serb civilians in the eastern city of Osijek during the 1991 Serbo-Croat war. Glavas is the first state official to be charged such crimes; if convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison. The other six persons charged were members of a paramilitary unit allegedly formed by Glavas in Osijek [backgrounder] in 1991. Glavas has maintained his innocence and even staged a 40-day hunger strike last year when he was detained [JURIST report] when the investigation initially opened. He also faces another war crimes investigation in Zagreb for the murder of two Serbs in a separate incident in Osijek.

Glavas was one of the founding members of the ruling conservative HDZ party [party website; Wikipedia backgrounder], but was ousted in 2005 by Prime Minister Ivo Sanader [SE Times profile]. The Croatian Parliament [official website, English version] granted a request in May 2006 to lift parliamentary immunity for Glavas in order to move forward with criminal proceedings. Reuters has more. Hina has local coverage.