[JURIST] The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) [official website, in Russian] has charged Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky [JURIST news archive] on suspicion of plotting a violent coup against President Vladimir Putin, Berezovsky's lawyer said Monday. The charge is related to an interview [Guardian report] Berezovsky gave to Britain's Guardian newspaper in April in which he said he was planning to forcefully remove Putin from power. In a statement [text] released after the interview, Berezovsky, now living in the UK after being granted asylum, insisted that he does not support violence.

Berezovsky has been previously charged in Russia with plotting a coup [JURIST report] against Putin. In May, the Russian Office of the Prosecutor-General [official website, in Russian] dismissed suggestions [JURIST report] made by a Russian lawmaker that Russian businessman Andrei Lugovoy could be extradited to the UK in exchange for Berezovsky. Lugovoy is wanted in the UK in connection with the polonium poisoning death of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko. Russian authorities have said that the Russian constitution forbids the extradition of its citizens [MFA statement] for alleged crimes committed abroad. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Lawyers for Rabei Osman el Sayed [CBC profile], the alleged mastermind behind the 2004 Madrid train bombings [JURIST news archive], demanded Monday that Osman be acquitted, accusing prosecutors of trying to convict him "based on nothing, and with an astounding frivolousness." El Sayed was convicted in Italy [JURIST report] for belonging to a terrorist group and was extradited to Spain for the Spanish trial. Prosecutors allege that Osman, also known as "Mohamed the Egyptian," planned the attacks and recruited others to help.

Monday was the last day of the trial of 28 defendants [BBC backgrounder], mostly of Moroccan descent, who were charged with 192 counts of murder and upwards of 1,800 counts of attempted murder related to the March 11, 2004 bombings. Prosecutors are seeking jail sentences for eight suspected ringleaders of nearly 39,000 years each [JURIST report], although the maximum time they could serve under Spanish law is 40 years. The defendants have all protested their innocence and condemned the attacks. AP has more.

[JURIST] US President George W. Bush spared former vice-presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby [defense website; JURIST news archive] from prison Monday, commuting his punishment [Grant of Executive Clemency; statement] to the $250,000 fine and the two years of supervised release ordered by the court. Bush said that although he respected the jury's verdict, the 30-month sentence [JURIST report] was "excessive" and said commuting the jail term was an "appropriate exercise" of the power of clemency. Bush pointed to Libby's damaged reputation, and the consequences that the felony conviction will have on his ability to practice law, as factors he considered in making his decision. Democrats immediately denounced the clemency grant, which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) [official website] called "disgraceful" [statement]. Reid said history will judge Bush harshly for using the power to commute sentences to benefit a member of his administration who "deserved to be imprisoned for lying about a matter of national security." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) [official website] called the commutation "a betrayal of trust of the American People" [statement].

Despite calls from conservatives for Bush to pardon Libby immediately following his conviction, Bush had said that he would not make any such decision until after Libby's appeals were exhausted. Bush made his decision the same day that the federal appeals court overseeing the case unanimously rejected [order, PDF; JURIST report] Libby's request [filing, PDF] to delay the start of his prison sentence pending his appeal [JURIST report]. AP has more.

[JURIST] The trial of suspects [JURIST report] allegedly involved in the January murder [JURIST report] of Armenian journalist Hrant Dink [BBC profile] began in Turkey [JURIST news archive] on Monday, with several humanitarian groups calling the case a "test" for the Turkish judiciary. Amnesty International [advocacy website] called for authorities to "leave no stone unturned" [press release] and said that the murder was part "of an increasing pattern of deadly intolerance of freedom of expression." Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] said it will monitor the proceedings [press release] to see how the court "handles evidence that may implicate the security forces," alluding to allegations that officials associated with nationalist forces may have played a role in the killing. Some of the defendants, including a local Istanbul prosecutor, have been charged with negligence for not acting on any of Dink's numerous reports that he had received death threats. Others, such as two ultra-nationalist gang leaders, are alleged to have colluded with the 17-year-old confessed gunman, perhaps even ordering the murder. Prosecutors are seeking life imprisonment for the gang leaders, Yasin Hayal and Erhan Tuncel, who in turn have claimed connections to various Turkish officials. Some security officers were forced to resign after pictures surfaced of themselves posing with the teenage gunman and a Turkish flag.

Dink was vilified by ultra-nationalists after writing about mass killings of Armenians by Turks [JURIST news archive] in the early twentieth century. His murder came during a wave of nationalism, after he was put on trial [JURIST report] for allegedly violating Article 301 [Amnesty backgrounder] of the Turkish penal code, which bans insults against Turkish identity. Amnesty International requested the right to observe the trial, but were turned down. Because of the confessed gunman's age, the trial is being conducted in closed session. AP has more.

[JURIST] Lawyers for former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky [advocacy website; JURIST news archive] filed a lawsuit Monday against Russian deputy chief prosecutor Viktor Grin and prosecutor Salavat Karimov, alleging that the two officials are ignoring a March court order [JURIST report] to transfer Khodorkovsky from a Siberian penal colony in Chita Oblast [Wikipedia backgrounder] to a detention facility in Moscow. The transfer order, which was challenged by prosecutors but upheld [JURIST report] in April, was made to facilitate a new investigation of money laundering charges [JURIST report] against Khodorkovsky.

Khodorkovsky, who was convicted of tax evasion [JURIST report] in May 2005, is currently 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 15 more years in prison. Both the United States and Khodorkovsky [JURIST reports] have lambasted the additional embezzlement and money laundering charges as politically motivated, a charge Russia has denied [JURIST report]. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Multinational Force-Iraq (MNF-I) [official website] announced Monday that US Army Sgt. Evan Vela has been charged [press release] with premeditated murder, obstruction of justice, wrongfully placing weapons with the remains of deceased Iraqis, and making a false official statement in connection with the killing of three unarmed Iraqis in three separate incidents between April and June 2007 in the vicinity of Iskandariyah, Iraq [GlobalSecurity backgrounder]. Vela is the third US soldier charged over the killings.

Last Saturday, MNF-I announced similar charges [JURIST report] against Staff Sergeant Michael A. Hensley and Specialist Jorge G. Sandoval, Jr. The three will face an Article 32 hearing [JAG backgrounder] to determine whether they will face courts-martial. If convicted of premeditated murder, Hensley, Sandoval, and Vela could face the death penalty. AP has more.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Monday unanimously denied [order, PDF] a motion by former US vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby [defense website; JURIST news archive] to delay his prison sentence [JURIST report] pending appeal. The appeals court found that Libby did not demonstrate that his appeal raises a "substantial question." Libby, whose earlier request for a delay was rejected [JURIST reports] by the federal district court in June, may seek an intervention from the Supreme Court or receive a pardon from President Bush.

Libby's lawyers had argued that the conviction could likely be overturned on appeal because Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald [official website] did not have the authority to bring charges as Justice Department superiors had recused themselves from the investigation. Libby, the only official held legally responsible as a result of the probe into the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity [JURIST news archive], was convicted [JURIST report] of perjury and obstruction of justice in March, and is expected to begin his 2 1/2-year prison sentence in the upcoming weeks. AP has more.

[JURIST] Former Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu [personal website; JURIST news archive] was sentenced to 6 months in prison Monday after being convicted [JURIST report] of violating the terms of his parole by granting interviews to foreign media. Vanunu spent 18 years in an Israeli prison after being convicted of treason [Israel MOJ backgrounder] for leaking details of Israel's secret atomic weapons program to the UK press [Times report], before being released in 2004 [JURIST report]. Under the terms of the release, Vanunu was forbidden from traveling outside of Israel, and was told to have only minimal contact with foreigners. He was indicted [JURIST report] in 2005 after speaking out against nuclear proliferation with various news sources, including the BBC [BBC report].

Vanunu was also given a further six month suspended sentence, which could be ordered if he continues to talk to foreigners, particularly the foreign press, or attempts to leave Israel.Vanunu has 45 days to launch an appeal, but it is unknown if he will do so. BBC News has more.

[JURIST] The Supreme Court of Pakistan [official website] tossed out "vexatious and scandalous" evidence introduced by the government in the case of suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry [official website; JURIST news archive] and rebuked prosecutors Monday, ordering the Intelligence Bureau (IB) [GlobalSecurity backgrounder] to search the high court and the homes of its justices for surveillance devices. The evidence, which contained photographs taken inside Chaudhry's home, was presented by the government last week against Chaudhry but only corroborated allegations by Chaudhry that the government was spying on senior judges. The high court also issued a prohibition against all intelligence officials entering the court or obtaining information from court officials.

The ruling is the second major setback for President Pervez Musharraf's efforts to remove Chaudhry from the top court on allegations of misconduct [JURIST report]. In June, the Supreme Court ruled that it has jurisdiction over legal disputes [JURIST report] involving the suspension, frustrating arguments [JURIST report] by government lawyers that the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) should be permitted to resume its disciplinary investigation against Chaudhry. The top court suspended the SJC's inquiry [JURIST report] in May after Chaudhry argued that the SJC lacked competence to try him. AP has more.

[JURIST] Lawyers for former Israeli President Moshe Katsav [BBC profile] Monday defended a controversial plea agreement [JURIST report] in which Katsav is to plead guilty to lesser sex charges in exchange for a suspended sentence and the dropping of rape charges [JURIST report], accusing critics who have filed a legal challenge against the deal [JURIST report] of shedding the "blood of Katsav" in a fashion reminiscent of mob witch-burnings during the Middle Ages. The colorful comments were filed in a letter to the Israeli Supreme Court [official website], which suspended the agreement and gave the government until Thursday to respond to five separate petitions [Haaretz report] filed against the plea bargain by a victim and civil and women's rights organizations. The petitioners argue that the plea deal is contrary to public interest, has no legal reason, and injures the principal of equality before the law.

Under the deal, Katsav will admit to charges of indecent assault, sexual harassment, and obstruction of justice, and will resign from the presidency. Katsav's resignation took effect Sunday. In October 2006, Israeli police recommended [JURIST report] that the Israeli attorney general indict Katsav following a three-month investigation of at least 10 complaints brought against him by former employees. The plea agreement, announced by Attorney General Menahem Mazuz [official profile] last week, was criticized by women's rights activists as special treatment, but Mazuz defended the agreement as necessary to protect the office of the presidency from further injury and spare the country from embarrassment. Haaretz has local coverage.

[JURIST] On Monday, UK Home Secretary Jacqui Smith [official website] told the British Parliament [official website] that investigating last week's terror incidents in London and at the Glasgow International Airport [official website] are the government's top priority [press release], and confirmed that two additional suspects from the Glasgow area have been arrested [press release]. Police reported that the new arrests, under the Prevention of Terrorism Act [text], were of two men aged 28- and 25-years-old. AP reported that the men are both doctors of Middle Eastern origin. The brother of one of the men told AP in Jordan that the arrest is "nonsense" because the man "has no terror connections" and is "not a fanatic." The arrests mean that a total of seven people are in police custody, including one under armed guard while being treated for serious burns at a Glasgow area hospital.

Police and investigators have been moving quickly [JURIST report] following Friday's discovery of two cars rigged to explode in London [press statement and recorded video] . A source in Glasgow who rented an apartment to one of the suspects told the AP that police contacted him Saturday morning, only 10 minutes before the airport incident [Sky News report]. With the exception of the heavily burned suspect, the airport attack resulted in only a few minor injuries. AP has more. BBC News has additional coverage.

4:53 PM ET - AP is reporting that an eighth suspect has now been arrested [AP report].

[JURIST] Kevin Andrews [official website], Australia's minister for immigration and citizenship, said Monday that the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) [official website] is considering remedial action [press release], including providing financial compensation to 247 individuals found to be wrongfully detained or deported by the DIAC between 1993 and 2007. Andrews' statement follows the release of the fourth and final report [materials; press release] by the Commonwealth Ombudsman [official website] documenting the DIAC's inadequate procedural safeguards that led to the illegal detention, which ranged from several hours to up to six years. Ombudsman John McMillan [official profile] accused the DIAC of maintaining a "low standard of proof to detain a person, yet requiring a high standard of proof to authorize a person's release." Andrews thanked the ombudsman for "helping in the process of change and reform" and said that the DIAC will write to the individuals to inform them of the report and the review of their cases.

In 2005, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees [official website] criticized Australia for its strict policy of detaining individuals [JURIST report] deemed to be illegal immigrants, refugees, or asylum seekers, who can spend years at remote detention facilities while their applications for refugee status are processed. AFP has more.

[JURIST] The Iranian Supreme Court held a hearing Sunday in the case of murdered Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi [CBC backgrounder; JURIST news archive] on an appeal of a lower court order that the case be reopened. Kazemi's family argued that there hasn't been an adequate investigation into her death and urged that the case be revisited. In addition to ordering the case to be reopened, an appeals court in 2005 upheld the acquittal [JURIST reports] of an intelligence agent accused of murdering Kazemi and Kazemi's family believes that Tehran chief prosecutor and Islamic Revolution tribunal judge Sa'id Mortazavi is the real culprit behind Kazemi's death.

Kazemi died in 2003 while under the custody of Iranian officials for photographing a demonstration outside a Tehran prison. She was allegedly tortured and raped [JURIST report] before dying under suspicious circumstances. Officials initially claimed Kazemi died from a stoke or a brain hemorrhage caused by a fall, but subsequent revelations indicate that Kazemi was severely beaten while in prison. Kazemi's family has supported the innocence of Mohammad Reza Aghdam Ahmadi, the intelligence agent accused of Kazemi's murder, claiming that the government is covering up Mortazavi's involvement in her death. AFP has more.

[JURIST] US Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said Sunday that he is prepared to initiate a Senate vote to hold officials in the White House, the Vice President's office, and the Department of Justice in contempt of Congress if they refuse to cooperate with congressional subpoenas [JURIST report] issued in the investigation of the US Attorney firings controversy [JURIST news archive]. In an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," Leahy criticized [transcript] the White House's broad assertion of executive privilege [JURIST report] saying:

They have taken the attitude at the, at the White House that somehow they're above the law. They — if they make a decision that there's something they want to do, nobody should question them on it. The vice president's even been quoted as saying, "The courts can't question it. The Congress can't question it." That's a Nixonian attitude, and it's wrong.

In America, no one is above the law. The president and the vice president are not above the law any more than you and I are. And it is unfortunate they've taken this attitude because what it does it taints everything else. Look at the Department of Justice, look what has happened here. You have as an attorney general somebody—nobody has confidence in him. Republicans don't; Democrats don't. Most of the key members of the Department of Justice are resigning. In fact, just about a week ago one resigned rather than come and have to testify under oath. And I begin to wonder is it going to be a case of last person out of the building turn the lights off?

[JURIST] Palestinian rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and Israeli military reprisals "constitute serious violations of the laws of war" [press release], according to a report [PDF text] released Sunday by Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website]. The report found that Palestinian militant groups, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades, and the Popular Resistance Committees [MIPT backgrounders], deliberately launched approximately 2,700 rockets against Israeli civilian positions between September 2005 and May 2007, killing four and wounding 75 Israelis, and causing at least 23 Palestinian casualties. HRW also criticized the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) [official website] for firing more than 14,600 artillery shells close to civilian populated areas in Gaza during the same period, killing 59 Palestinians and wounding 270.

In its report, HRW wrote:

The Palestinian rocket attacks violate international humanitarian law, also known as the laws of war, which governs the conduct of the parties during armed conflict. Where an attack on a military target is intended and that target is in or near a civilian area, the Palestinian rocket attacks are indiscriminate because they cannot distinguish between military targets and civilians. Where there is no intended military target and the rockets are launched into a civilian area, they constitute deliberate attacks against civilians. Given that the rocket attacks have inflicted very little damage on Israeli military assets, their primary purpose seems to be to kill civilians or at least to spread terror among the Israeli civilian population, both of which IHL prohibits.

Even assuming the rocket attacks were intended as reprisal for Israeli attacks that kill and injure civilians, as Palestinian groups often claimed, they still are unlawful under international humanitarian law. The law governing reprisals — defined as otherwise unlawful actions that are considered lawful when used as an enforcement measure in reaction to an adversary's unlawful acts — does not permit direct or indiscriminate attacks on civilians, in part for reasons that these rocket-artillery exchanges demonstrate: even attacks ostensibly launched as reprisals often spur counterattacks by the other side, yielding an endless cycle of civilian injury and death. As the leading treaty in this area provides, one side's targeting of civilians or civilian objects can never justify like targeting by the other side.

Nevertheless, ... all of the Palestinian civilian deaths and the great majority of injuries caused by Israeli artillery fire occurred following Israel's exponential increase of artillery fire and reported authorizing of shelling within a proximity to civilian areas that is smaller than the casualty radius of the artillery. Moreover, Israel did not routinely investigate cases in which civilians died or were injured to learn from past cases of civilian casualties and to ensure that in the future all feasible precautions were taken to avoid them. The combination of increased shelling considerably closer to populated areas and failure to investigate suggest, at the very least, an indifference to the duty to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian casualties and a failure to rigorously balance concrete military advantage against expected civilian harm, as required by the rule of proportionality....

In addition, while Palestinian fighters firing rockets from sites close to Palestinian civilians can itself be a law-of-war violation and does not prohibit the IDF from returning fire, the IDF still must take all feasible steps to minimize civilian loss and refrain from attack if expected civilian casualties will be disproportionate to the concrete military gain.