[JURIST] Thirty terror suspects were tortured by Afghan security forces after being being transferred from Canadian custody, the Toronto Globe and Mail reported [text] Monday. The detainees gave accounts of being beaten, electrocuted, starved, and left in freezing temperatures while detained in Kandahar province jails. The report prompted calls for the resignation of Canadian Defense Minister Gordon O'Connor [official profile] by Canadian opposition members from the New Democratic Party, Liberal Party [party websites], and Bloc Québécois [party website, in French]. Opposition MPs also called for an end to the prison transfers and for a public inquiry to be held. O'Connor and Prime Minister Stephen Harper [official website] maintain that Canadian troops did nothing wrong but pledged to investigate the allegations.

In February the Canadian government ordered an official inquiry [JURIST report] into reported detainee abuse in Afghanistan. The probe began following a civilian complaint filed by University of Ottawa law professor Amir Attaran [Sourcewatch profile], whose research [Globe and Mail report] uncovered a pattern of suspicious injuries on three detainees captured last April and later released. In 2005, Chief of Defense Staff Gen. Rick Hillier [official profile] signed the Canada-Afghanistan Detainee Agreement [text] authorizing the transfers; Attaran said the agreement did not give Canada the power to inspect detainees [JURIST report] after their transfers, thus allowing broad latitude for torture to occur. CBC News has more.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] heard oral arguments [transcript, PDF] Monday in Brendlin v. California [ABA merit briefs], 06-8120, in which the Court must determine whether an automobile passenger, convicted on drug charges resulting from an illegal traffic stop, may contest the legality of the stop under the Fourth Amendment [text]. In 2001, Bruce Edward Brendlin was convicted in California of manufacturing methamphetamine based on evidence found in a car during a stop which the state later conceded was baseless. Brendlin moved to suppress the evidence, arguing that the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures should be extended to protect passengers as well as drivers. California is one of only three states that does not allow passengers to assert such a defense. Justices Kennedy, Breyer and Scalia expressed concern regarding the implications of the state's argument that passengers are not seized during a stop. Justice Kennedy said, "I think indications from the bench are we just don't think passengers, a, are or, b, should feel free to leave when there's a traffic stop." The Court is expected to rule by the end of June.

The Supreme Court of California [official website] ruled against Brendlin [opinion, PDF] in 2006, holding that passengers are not automatically seized during a traffic stop, and allowed the evidence to be used in the trial. Brendlin is now backed by the American Civil Liberties Union and NAACP [advocacy websites], which fear that a judgment for the state would give police broad power to stop vehicles to search passengers. Brendlin's conviction may stand regardless of the Court's ruling, as at the time of arrest he was wanted for an unrelated parole violation, which itself may have justified the state's search. AP has more.

The Supreme Court also heard oral arguments in two other cases Monday. In United States v. Atlantic Research Corp [transcript, PDF; merit briefs], 06-562, the Court must decide whether owners of areas contaminated by hazardous materials that must be cleaned up under Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) [text] can recover contribution from other responsible parties before they are subject to a government enforcement action. In Hinck v. United States [transcript, PDF; merit briefs], 06-376, the Court will decide whether tax courts have exclusive jurisdiction to review an IRS decision to deny a taxpayer’s request for interest abatement or whether district courts and Federal Claims Court also have such jurisdiction.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] issued an order [PDF text] Monday that vacated a 2005 decision [PDF] by the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit striking down Missouri's 1999 "partial birth" abortion ban. After the Supreme Court's decision last week in Gonzales v. Carhart [Duke Law case backgrounder; JURIST report], the Eighth Circuit ruling was out of step with the Court's upholding of the federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 [PDF text]. The Missouri case has been remanded to the Eighth Circuit. Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon [official website] said he plans to appeal to the Circuit Court to vacate its injunction on the ban.

In Gonzales, the Court held that groups challenging the partial birth abortion ban [JURIST news archive] "have not demonstrated that the Act, as a facial matter, is void for vagueness, or that it imposes an undue burden on a woman's right to abortion based on its overbreadth or lack of a health exception." The 5-4 decision marked the first time the Court has upheld a complete ban on an abortion procedure. AP has more.

[JURIST] The United Kingdom cannot legally continue to provide political asylum to Russian billionaire and alleged coup plotter Boris Berezovsky [MosNews profile] and refuse to extradite him, the chairman of the Russian State Duma's Civil, Criminal, Arbitration and Procedural Law Committee said Monday. Berezovsky, who has been charged with plotting a coup against Russian President Vladimir Putin [official website], notoriously suggested earlier this month that the current Russian government can only be changed by force. The comments prompted the Office of the Russian Prosecutor General [official website, in Russian] to submit a request [JURIST report] to the UK Home Office [official website] to revoke Berezovsky's asylum status.

British police began an investigation Friday into whether Berezovsky's comments violated UK law after the Russian government renewed its call for Berezovsky's extradition [JURIST report]. The Russian prosecutor general's office suspended [JURIST report] its own 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. RIA Novosti has more.

[JURIST] Bernard Ntuyahaga [TrialWatch profile], a former Rwandan army major, denied at trial Monday any involvement in the 1994 murder of 10 Belgian peacekeepers and the Rwandan prime minister they were charged with protecting. Ntuyahaga said he was being used as a scapegoat, that he was simply "at the bad place at the bad moment." The prosecution argues that he was in charge of taking the peacekeepers and prime minister to the place where they would later be beaten and murdered.

Ntuyahaga's trial began last week [JURIST report]. He is charged with 16 counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder stemming from the deaths, which took place during the first weeks of the 1994 Rwandan genocide [BBC backgrounder]. Ntuyahaga was extradited to Tanzania in 1998 to face genocide and war crimes charges [indictment, PDF] arising from the same incident, but the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda dropped all charges [decision text] in 1999. Ntuyahaga then voluntarily surrendered himself to Belgian authorities in 2004 after a prolonged extradition attempt. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) [official website] may file a lawsuit against former Apple, Inc. [corporate website] General Counsel Nancy Heinin for allegations of backdating two 2001 stock option grants, Heinin's lawyers said Monday. The incidents in question involved one grant to CEO Steve Jobs and another to several executives including Heinin herself. In particular, Heinin allegedly advocated moving the January 2001 option grant date to a date after an industry convention at which Apple made several announcements that raised the company's stock price. Heinin contends she actually tried to persuade the Board of Directors to move the option dates forward, which would result in less favorable pricing for the option holders. Heinin's lawyers also confirmed that the US Department of Justice [official website] is currently investigating Heinin for awarding stock options to Apple executives.

In January, the US Attorney's office in San Francisco opened a criminal probe [JURIST report] into Apple's option backdating practices and specifically the option grant to CEO Steve Jobs for which Heinin could face a lawsuit. The investigation followed Apple's findings [JURIST report] in a December 2006 internal report that its executives committed no wrong-doing and that Jobs did not financially benefit from stock options, despite knowledge of favorable grant dates. Bloomberg has more.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] granted certiorari Monday in US v. Santos [cert. petition, PDF] 06-1005 [docket], where the Court will consider the definition of proceeds in relation to illegal money laundering schemes under 18 USC 1956 [text]. The case is on appeal from the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

The Seventh Circuit ruled [PDF text] in favor of the defendants, finding that the government did not present a compelling reason to overturn the definition of proceeds as "mean net income" rather than gross receipts. AP has more. Read the full Order List [PDF text].

[JURIST] San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom [official website] pledged Sunday to keep the city a haven for immigrants, saying that while he cannot stop US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) [official website] agents from making arrests, he will try to keep them from conducting immigrations raids. In a statement at a local church, Newsom said "I will not allow...anyone associated with this city to cooperate" with the raids. Reconfirming the San Francisco Board of Supervisors 1989 declaration that San Francisco as a "sanctuary city," Newsom said no city employee will be permitted to aid the federal agents on immigration enforcement issues.

Since last year, ICE officials have conducted raids throughout California and the rest of the country. Earlier this month, thousands of protesters marched in Los Angeles [JURIST report] against President Bush's latest proposal to grant citizenship to the more than 12 million illegal immigrants in the US. The proposal [PDF text] floated last month would allow illegal immigrants [JURIST news archive] to apply for work visas, but at the expiration of the visa, immigrants would be required to return to their home countries to actually apply for citizenship. The San Francisco Chronicle has more.

[JURIST] The head of Nigeria's electoral commission [official website] announced Monday that ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) [BBC backgrounder] candidate Umaru Yar'Adua [BBC profile] won the country's weekend presidential election by a landslide - taking 24.6 million votes as against 6.6 million for former army general Muhammadu Buhari [campaign website] - but European Union observer Max van den Berg [official website], echoing sharp criticism of the poll [JURIST report] by NGO representatives and Nigerian opposition leaders, said the election was not "credible" [Reuters report] and had not "lived up to the hopes and expectations of the Nigerian people." Current Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo [official website] admitted in a national address delivered prior to the announcement of the results that the poll had been flawed but accused opposition figures of "fanning the embers of hate." Challenges, he insisted, should be handled through the courts. Buhari has already rejected the results of the vote and has publicly urged parliament to impeach Obasanjo for his role in the process. Current Nigerian Vice President and onetime Obasanjo ally and running mate Atiku Abubakar [official website] garnered 2.6 million ballots Saturday after being allowed onto the ballot by an eleventh-hour court ruling [JURIST reports].

The presidential election was the second in a two-stage sequence of hotly-contested national polls that began with state races [JURIST report] 10 days ago. Violence associated with that round of voting took some 50 lives. Barring other developments, the winner of the presidential race is expected to take office May 29. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] A spokesperson for New York Governor Eliot Spitzer [official website; JURIST news archive] has said the governor plans to introduce a bill to legalize same-sex marriage [JURIST news archive] in the state of New York [JURIST news archive] in the next few weeks. Spitzer reportedly seeks to fulfill a campaign promise [NYT report] to support a gay marriage bill he made last October in his run for governor. Any such legislation proposed by Spitzer would require consideration by the New York State Assembly [official website]. The New York Times has more.

Massachusetts [JURIST news archive] is currently the only US state to recognize same-sex marriage, after a November 2003 state high court ruling [JURIST report; background materials]. More than 8,000 same-sex couples have since been wed there.

[JURIST] US Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) [official website] and US Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) [official website] said Sunday they will push legislation in the US Congress that would mandate that states improve their system for reporting mental health records of gun purchasers to the federal databases for background checks in the wake of last Monday's shootings [New York Times report] at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute that left 33 people dead. US Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) [official website], chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also said Sunday he will hold hearings [Face the Nation video] to consider the issue of guns following the tragedy at Virginia Tech.

Overall, members of Congress do not seem particularly keen to amend existing gun control [JURIST news archive] legislation, though there has been some support for streamlining state and federal laws regarding whether and how someone with a history of mental illness can purchase firearms. AP has more.

[JURIST] President Bush defended US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales [official profile] Monday after US Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) [official website], the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, publicly criticized [Fox News Sunday transcript] Gonzales Sunday for his role in the controversial firing of eight US attorneys [JURIST news archive] and said Gonzales' testimony before the Judiciary Committee [JURIST report] last week was "very, very damaging to his own credibility." Specter did not explicitly call for Gonzales to resign, but he emphasized that Gonzales' conduct in the US Attorney firing scandal has harmed both the US Department of Justice [official website] and the Bush administration. Gonzales has repeatedly defended [JURIST report] his role in the firings and has not indicated he will step down from his position in response to several calls for his resignation [JURIST report]. AP has more.

Bush defended Gonzales [statement] Monday while speaking to the press after a meeting with General David Petraeus to discuss the ongoing War in Iraq. Bush said of Gonzales' testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee:

The Attorney General went up and gave a very candid assessment, and answered every question he could possibly answer, honestly answer, in a way that increased my confidence in his ability to do the job.

One of the things that's important for the American people to understand is that the Attorney General has a right to recommend to me to replace U.S. attorneys. U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President. In other words, we have named them, and I have the right to replace them with somebody else. And as the investigation, the hearings went forward, it was clear that the Attorney General broke no law, did no wrongdoing. And some senators didn't like his explanation, but he answered as honestly as he could. This is an honest, honorable man, in whom I have confidence.

[JURIST] An arrest warrant [JURIST report] issued over the weekend for former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina [Wikipedia profile] was suspended Monday after police asked the judge presiding over the case to allow them more time to continue their investigation. Hasina was charged [JURIST report] in absentia earlier this month with four counts of murder arising from the deaths of four protesters during political turmoil in October. She has denied the charges and has said that she plans to return to Bangladesh to fight the charges, but was prevented from boarding a plane to Dhaka this weekend after Bangladeshi authorities banned her from entering the country.

Hasina and her former political opponent, Khaleda Zia [Virtual Bangladesh profile], are both facing heavy scrutiny during the current interim government's crackdown on the political corruption in Bangladesh [JURIST news archive]. A state of emergency [JURIST report] was imposed in January after violent and fatal street fights between followers of Hasina and Zia. The anti-corruption campaign has already led to the detentions of more than 160 senior government officials. AP has more.

[JURIST] Boris Yeltsin [Wikipedia profile], Russia's first elected president and the primary architect of the country's shift towards democratic government in the 1990s, died Monday, according to Russian wire services. Yeltsin was 76 and had a history of health problems, including heart trouble. Initial wire reports did not give the cause of death but said that Yeltsin died "suddenly." First elected president of Russia in June 1991 in what turned out to be the last months of the former Soviet Union, the former Politburo member and Moscow mayor [timeline] shot to political ascendancy after disaffected Soviet generals attempted a military coup against Soviet Communist leader Mikhail Gorbachev - the famous architect of perestroika and glasnost and rapprochement with the West - in August of that year. Yeltsin famously stood on a tank in central Moscow, defying the coup leaders. After the failure of the coup Yeltsin filled a political vacuum left by the weakened Gorbachev and ultimately presided over the formal end of the USSR, restoring the name and flag of "Russia" and realigning Russia's relationship with the former Soviet republics.

Yeltsin's rapid drive for liberalizing economic and political reforms rapidly brought him into conflict with legislators in the two Soviet-era parliamentary chambers, the Supreme Soviet and the Congress of People's Deputies. Tensions came to a head in 1993 when the Yeltsin attempted to suspend those bodies [WP report] pending new elections and approval of a new constitution [Wikipedia backgrounder]. The legislators in turn impeached Yeltsin and declared him removed. Public protests against Yeltsin began in late September, but the standoff between the two opposing sides was effectively broken by the military and security services in early October when they threw their support behind Yeltsin, enabling him to suppress the parliamentarians by shelling the parliament building. The constitutional changes [new constitution, text] Yeltsin wanted were pushed through in a December 1993 referendum approved by over 58 percent of voters, increasing the political power of the Russian presidency in a broadly democratic political structure.

The latter years of Yeltsin's presidency were marked by increasing economic troubles and allegations of corruption as free market forces were left to run rampant in the newly-liberalized country, giving rise to a class of capitalist "oligarchs". Yeltsin was accused of being involved in bribery and nepotism, and his hold on power loosened as his health declined and rumors of excessive drinking [BBC report] abounded. He faced an additional call for his impeachment from opposition members of the reconstituted State Duma [official website] in 1999, alleging he had acted unconstitutionally in dissolving the former Soviet Union, but the motion did not win enough votes to carry. Yeltsin announced his own resignation from the presidency in favor of secret police head Vladimir Putin on December 31, 1999. One of Putin's first acts on assuming office was to grant his predecessor lifetime immunity from prosecution [BBC report]. RFE/RL has more. The Russian Presidency website provides an official record of Yeltsin's career [in Russian].

11:45 AM ET - Russian news agencies are now saying that Yeltsin died of "long-term heart trouble" [RIA Novosti report].