[JURIST] Gen. Sonthi Boonyaratglin [BBC profile], the leader of Thailand's 2006 bloodless coup [JURIST report], said Friday on state television that he backs amnesty for ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra [BBC profile] and his party leaders. The remarks follow Wednesday's Constitutional Court [official website, in Thai] ruling that banned Shinawatra from politics [JURIST report] and dissolved his Thai Rak Thai (TRT) [party website, in Thai] party. Boonyaratglin said that an amnesty bill would have to be proposed by Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont, and approved by the parliament. Both Chulanont and the parliament were appointed by Boonyaratglin and the army. Boonyaratglin also said that other coup leaders agree with his calls for amnesty.

Even as Boonyaratglin spoke, supporters of Shinawatra and his party protested in Bangkok, clashing with unarmed police officers [JURIST report]. On Wednesday, TRT's rival party Democratic Party [party website] was cleared of any wrongdoing in the same ruling that banned TRT; the Democratic Party is now largely unopposed in Thailand. Shinawatra, in exile in London, asked his supporters to remain calm. He still could face trial on charges of corruption [JURIST report]. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia [official website] Friday ruled against [decision, PDF] Internet telephone (VoIP - Voice over Internet Protocol) provider Vonage [corporate website] in its challenge to 2006 FCC rules [PDF text; press release, PDF] requiring VoIP providers to contribute to the Universal Service Fund (USF) [official backgrounder]. Vonage raised rates [press release] in response to the new rules, but challenged the FCC regarding how much the company had to contribute to the fund. Although the decision strikes down part of the new rules, it affirms the statutory authority of the FCC to require USF contributions from VoIP providers.

The USF, administered by the Universal Service Administrative Company [official website], subsidizes phone service and communications costs to ensure that consumers and health care providers in rural areas pay rates comparable to those charged to urban counterparts for similar services. The fund also subsidizes basic local phone service for low income consumers, as well as supporting communication and Internet services for schools and libraries. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Dennis Edney, a Canadian civilian lawyer for Canadian Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainee Omar Khadr [Trial Watch profile; JURIST news archive], said Friday that his client would not work out a plea deal with the US military because it would require Khadr to serve 30 years in prison on terror charges. Instead, Edney indicated he will push for an independent psychological evaluation for his client, who was only 15 years old when he was captured in Afghanistan in 2002. In April Khadr was formally charged [charge sheet, PDF; JURIST report] with murdering a US soldier in Afghanistan by throwing a hand grenade at him. Edney was able to meet with his client for the first time last week, but currently is considered merely a "foreign attorney consultant." Khadr had been assigned US lawyers, but he supposedly fired them [JURIST report] last year and then fired them again [JURIST report] this past week. Edney and a fellow Canadian lawyer will push to be accepted by the US as full counsel who can, alongside US Navy lawyer Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, work to represent Khadr. The Military Commissions Act (MCA) [PDF text] requires that a military lawyer be present during a Guantanamo trial.

Khadr told his family in March that he plans to boycott his trial [JURIST report]. In April, the US Supreme Court declined to hear a lawsuit [petition for certiorari, PDF; JURIST report] by Khadr challenging the legality of his military commission under the MCA. The Canadian Press has more.

[JURIST] Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) [party website, in Turkish; Wikipedia backgrounder] Friday announced plans to hold a national referendum to decide whether the country's president will be elected by popular vote instead of by parliament. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan [BBC profile] said the referendum could be held on July 22, the same day as parliamentary elections, despite objections from the secularist opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) [party website, in Turkish]. The AKP proposal, to be debated in parliament this weekend, concomitantly seeks to reduce the length of time required before a referendum can be held from 120 days to 45 days.

Last week Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer vetoed [JURIST report] a constitutional amendment approved by parliament that would have allowed Turks to vote for their president directly. Parliament passed the amendment for a second time [JURIST report] on Thursday. By Turkish law, Sezer must now either sign the reform into law or call the expected national referendum. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] The Supreme Court of the Philippines [official website] ruled Friday that there was insufficient evidence [opinion text] to support charges of rebellion against six leftist congressional representatives alleged to have plotted a coup [JURIST report] to oust President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo [official website; BBC profile] in 2006. The court held that probable cause could not be established. Early in the investigation, Secretary of Justice Raul Gonzalez [official profile] said that the Philippines Department of Justice [official website] would just declare probable cause, then leave it up to the court to decide. The court said this showed a pre-judgment determination to file the case even without probable cause, and urged strict adherence to the established procedures for filing criminal cases.

The alleged 2006 coup plot was not the first attempt to overthrow Arroyo's government. In 2003 approximately 300 soldiers from elite special forces took over buildings [BBC report] in Manila. In April, a Philippines military tribunal sentenced 54 of them [JURIST report] to seven years and six months each in jail. DPA has more.

[JURIST] President George W. Bush strongly condemned the Iran's detention of four Iran-Americans Friday, saying in a statement [text] that "they should be freed immediately and unconditionally." Bush named Dr. Haleh Esfandiari [WWC profile], Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh [OSI press release], Ali Shakeri [academic profile] and Radio Farda [media website] correspondent Parnaz Azima as among the Iranian-Americans detained, and also said he was "disturbed by the Iranian regime's refusal" to provide information concerning Robert Levinson [advocacy website], a former FBI agent who disappeared in March while visiting Iran [JURIST news archive].

On Thursday, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders, the International Federation for Human Rights, and Iranian 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi [advocacy websites] issued a joint statement [text] urging the immediate release of the four, saying that their detention violates both international and Iranian laws. They also called on the Iranian government to end its "persecution and prosecution" of dual-national scholars and journalists. On Tuesday, Iran formally charged Tajbakhsh and Azima [JURIST report] for conspiring against the government. Last Monday, Iran formally charged Esfandiari [JURIST report], director of the Middle East Program at the DC-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars [think tank website], with plotting to overthrow the Iranian government by organizing a network "against the sovereignty of the country." The Washington Post has more. AP has additional coverage.

[JURIST] The government of Pakistan [official website; JURIST news archive] Friday instituted a two-month ban on unauthorized rallies of more than five people in the capital city of Islamabad. The move came only one day before a planned march from Islamabad to the city of Abbotabad to protest the dismissal and ongoing trial of suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry [official website; JURIST news archive]. A lawyer for Chaudhry told AP that the marchers plan on ignoring the ban, and will not seek government permission for their protest. Several television stations have reportedly been told that they will not be allowed to cover the march. President Gen. Pervez Musharraf told [press release] the media on Wednesday not to "politicize a purely judicial and legal matter," and to follow the regulations set down by Pakistan's media regulatory authority. The Pakistan Army Friday also expressed its ongoing support [statement] for Musharraf.

A previous attempt to restrict a rally for Chaudhry in Karachi last month turned violent [JURIST report], resulting in 41 deaths. Many Pakistani lawyers and opposition leaders believe Chaudhry's suspension to be an assault on the independence of the country's judiciary and an indirect bid by Musharraf to continue his eight-year rule in an election year. Musharraf suspended [JURIST report] Chaudhry in March for allegedly misusing his influence [JURIST report] to obtain jobs and promotions for his son. AP has more.

[JURIST] Ethiopian special prosecutor Joseph Kiros told Reuters Friday that the Ethiopian government will seek to raise the sentence of convicted former dictator Mengistu Haile Miriam [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] from a life in prison to the death penalty when an appeal commences June 12. Dozens of former officials in Mengistu's government will appear personally, although Mengistu remains in exile in Zimbabwe, where the regime of Robert Mugabe has repeatedly refused to extradite him [JURIST report]. Judges spared Mengistu from the death penalty during his sentencing [JURIST report] in January, citing the former dictator's advanced age and poor health.

The original trial, which took 12 years, convicted 72 of the 73 former officials charged with genocide, imprisonment, homicide, and illegal confiscation of property for crimes committed during the 1977-1978 "Red Terror" [US Department of State backgrounder], when thousands of Mengistu's political opponents were executed. Twelve defendants died during the trial, and 25, including Mengistu, were tried in absentia. Approximately 150,000 university students, intellectuals and politicians were killed during Mengistu's rule from 1974-1991. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Approximately a thousand demonstrators gathered in Bangkok Thursday to protest a Wednesday order [JURIST report] by the Constitutional Court [official website, in Thai] of Thailand banning former Prime Minister Thaksin Sinawatra [BBC profile] and 110 other Thai Rak Thai (TRT) [party website] officials from holding political offices for five years. The court, which found the TRT guilty of electoral fraud [JURIST report] during last year's annulled elections, also ordered the dissolution of the TRT. TRT leader Chaturon Chaisaeng said that party members would recreate the TRT by registering a "new" party under the same name.

TRT was put on trial [JURIST report] in January for allegedly misusing the independent election commission and illegally paying smaller parties to run candidates against it to satisfy minimum vote requirements. AP has more.

[JURIST] China's new "Enterprise Bankruptcy" law came into effect Friday, officially introducing broad sweeping regulations governing the resolution of outstanding business debts for the first time in China [JURIST news archive], which is gradually amending its laws to address the changing conditions brought about by China's quick transition to a market economy. The regulations, which will allow creditors to attach assets of debtors that declared bankruptcy, gives the local People's Court the authority to nullify business transactions up to one year before a bankruptcy declaration. The measures were designedly largely to address "fraudulent bankruptcies" that previously allowed debtors to escape liability by declaring bankruptcy and transfer company assets to third parties without explanation or under the guise of business transactions or settling non-existent debts.

The bankruptcy law also imposes a duty on company supervisors to preserve property and financial records, as well as to respond to creditors interrogatories. High-level officials of companies that declared bankruptcy are also restricted from leaving the jurisdiction of their place of residence without permission from the People's Court, and are prohibited from assuming other high-level positions at other enterprises. BBC News has more. Xinhua has local coverage.

[JURIST] Jack Kevorkian [BBC profile], a former doctor convicted of second degree murder for assisting the suicide of a patient with Lou Gehrig's disease, was released from prison in Michigan Friday after serving 8 years. Kevorkian, who will remain on parole for two more years, has pledged that he will not assist people in committing suicide and would seek to legalize assisted suicide [JURIST news archive] through legal means. Kevorkian was sentenced to between 10 and 25 years in prison in 1999. Russ Marlan, spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) [official website], said that Kevorkian will be prohibited from providing care for anyone who is disabled or older than 62, and is also prohibited from demonstrating how to construct machines that patients could use to commit suicide.

Oregon is currently the only US state that officially permits physicians to prescribe a lethal dose of drugs for terminally ill patients. Under Oregon's Death with Dignity Act [PDF text], which was upheld [JURIST report] by the US Supreme Court against a federal challenge, patients must file a written voluntary and capable request witnessed by at least two individuals, be examined by a consulting physician, submit to a mandatory 15-day waiting period, and other procedural safeguards before being able to obtain the assisted suicide medication. AP has more.

[JURIST] The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website] Friday confirmed [press release] the transfer to The Hague of newly arrested [JURIST report] Bosnian Serb war crimes indictee Zdravko Tolimir [ICTY case backgrounder, PDF]. Tolimir, a former Assistant Commander for Intelligence and Security of the Main Staff of the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS), has been charged with genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, and various other crimes against humanity for his alleged role in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre [BBC timeline; JURIST news archive], was a close aide to war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic [ICTY case backgrounder; JURIST news archive]. Bosnian Serb police official Gojko Vasic told reporters that Tolimir was arrested by local police in the town of Bratunac after Tolimir crossed into Bosnia from Serbia.

Five of the 161 suspects indicted by the ICTY remain fugitives, including Mladic and former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic [ICTY case backgrounder; BBC profile]. The latest arrest comes amid new pressure on Serbia from the European Union (EU) [official website] and the United States to prosecute war criminals and arrest war crimes fugitives. AFP has more.

[JURIST] The US District Court for the District of Colombia Thursday dismissed [opinion, PDF] a derivative lawsuit filed by shareholders of home financial services corporation Fannie Mae [corporate website] to force former CEO Franklin D. Raines, former CFO J. Timothy Howard, and other former board members and executives involved in a major accounting scandal [JURIST report] to repay their bonuses and severance packages to the corporation. Judge Richard Leon [official profile] found the shareholders should first have petitioned the corporation, asking it to sue its board members, before they themselves sued the board members on the corporation's behalf. The shareholders failed to do this, instead proceeding directly to a shareholder lawsuit. The judge also ruled that the shareholders failed to meet

their burden of raising a reasonable doubt that the Board is not entitled to the benefit of the presumption that in making a business decision, the directors acted on an informed basis [with] good faith and in the honest belief that the action taken was in the best interest of the company.

[JURIST] Myanmar's extended detention of democracy advocate and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi [advocacy website; BBC profile] violates the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights [texts], the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention [official website] ruled in an opinion [PDF] released Thursday. The condemning ruling follows the the military government of Myanmar's May 25 extension of Suu Kyi's house arrest [JURIST report] for the fifth straight year. Jared Genser [official profile], Suu Kyi's US lawyer and president of Freedom Now [advocacy website; statement] told AFP that "we are gratified [that] the UN has reaffirmed that Aung San Suu Kyi is being held in violation of international law" and added that the ruling was significant because it found that the military government's claims that Suu Kyi had been trying to overthrow the government was "completely unsubstantiated."

Last Friday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that he "regrets" Myanmar's decision [statement] and is determined to continue working to restore democracy in the country. Prior to the announcement of Suu Kyi's house arrest extension, the US State Department [statement], UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour [statement; JURIST report], 59 former heads of state [press release] and local activists [JURIST report] urged Suu Kyi's release. Suu Kyi has spent 11 of the past 17 years in prison or under house arrest for alleged violations of an anti-subversion law [text]. AFP has more.

[JURIST] A Polish court Thursday sentenced 15 riot police officers involved in the 1981 shooting deaths of nine coal miners, handing down sentences ranging from eleven years to at least two and half years in prison. The coal miners were protesting a martial law [Polish government backgrounder; JURIST report] crackdown on dissent by the beleaguered Communist government of General Wojciech Jaruzelski. The crackdown, prompted by the surging popularity of the Solidarity labor movement and alleged fears of a Soviet invasion of the country, is said to have resulted in the death of approximately 100 people. The convictions come after years of failed prosecutions against those deemed responsible for the shootings, which had previously been plagued by a lack of evidence.

The prosecutions were part of a plan for "moral renewal" [Washington Post report] pushed by Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his brother, Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski [official websites] which has sought to purge police and military intelligence agencies and require civil servants, academics and others to disclose whether they served as police informants [JURIST report] prior to 1989. The country's Constitutional Tribunal struck down the proposed disclosure law [JURIST report] last month, saying that the government could neither require citizens to make such declarations nor publish a list of alleged Soviet collaborators. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] The US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence [official website] questioned whether the secret CIA detention and interrogation program "is the best means to obtain a full and reliable intelligence debriefing of a detainee" in a report [PDF text] published Thursday to accompany the 2008 intelligence appropriations bill [S 1538, PDF]. The report said that both the Congress and the Executive "must continue to evaluate" whether the controversial program is necessary, lawful, and pursuant to the best interest of the United States, emphasizing that "the complications [the program] causes to any ultimate prosecution of [terrorists], and the damage... to the [international] image of the United States" should be considered.

The committee also characterized the "Administration's decision to withhold the program's existence from the full Committee membership for five years" as unfortunate because it "unnecessarily hindered congressional oversight of the program." The committee urged the US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] to produce a legal review of the program, which the DOJ has failed to do after the Supreme Court's June 2006 decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld [opinion text; JURIST news archive] and the passage of the Detainee Treatment Act (DTA) [text] and Military Commissions Act of 2006 [PDF text]. The report was approved 12-3 by the committee, with the support of all eight Democratic senators and four of the seven Republican senators.

The committee also addressed the "Administration's proposals and possible alternatives" to amend [JURIST report] the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) [text; JURIST news archive], saying that it could not review the proposed revisions until the White House releases key documents such as the "President's orders authorizing the warrantless surveillance and the Department of Justice opinions on the legality of the program." The report also documented a May 23 closed session in which Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) proposed cutting funding to interrogation techniques utilized by the CIA that go beyond the Army's FM 2-22.2 Intelligence Interrogation Field Manuel [PDF text], which requires military interrogators to adhere to the Third and Fourth Geneva Convention [texts]. The proposal was narrowly defeated by one vote when Democratic Senator Bill Nelson (D-FA) joined the seven Republican senators on the committee. The New York Times has more.

[JURIST] US military officials Thursday identified [press release, PDF] a deceased Saudi Arabian detainee who apparently committed suicide [JURIST report] at the military prison Wednesday as Abdul Rahman Ma'ath Thafir al-Amri. Joint Task Force-Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO)[official website] said in press release that al-Amri, a 34-year-old Saudi military veteran held at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] since February 2002, had admitted that he "volunteered to fight with the local Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Al Hanan." JTF-GTMO also said that al-Amri fought US forces in Tora Bora Mountains in November 2001, and had connections with al Qaeda as a "mid-level" operative with direct ties to "higher-level members including meeting with Osama bin Laden." The New York Times reported Friday that according to government documents, al-Amri had been involved in persistent hunger strikes at the prison and had dropped his weight from approximately 150 pounds to 88.5 pounds by November 2005. The Miami Herald reported on Thursday that al-Amri, like the three Guantanamo detainees who committed suicided in June 2006 [JURIST report], was among a group of detainees who had never met with an American attorney.

The Herald also said that according to a report written by an unnamed officer during Al-Amri's Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) [DOD materials], al-Amri intended "to go [to Afghanistan] and fight for a cause that he believed in as a Muslim towards jihad, not to go and fight against the Americans." Government documents indicate that al-Amri had maintained he did not travel to Afghanistan to fight Americans, stating that Americans had trained him while al-Amri was serving in the Saudi military and he "could have [killed Americans] while he was side by side with them in Saudi Arabia." Guantanamo officials say that an autopsy on al-Amri will be performed by a pathologist from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) with an independent observer from the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner's Office of Florida. Al-Amri's remains will be returned to Saudi Arabia for burial. The New York Times has more. The Miami Herald has additional coverage.