[JURIST] White House Deputy Press Secretary Tony Fratto attempted Friday to deflect widespread criticism of US Attorney General-nominee Michael Mukasey's refusal to say whether he considers waterboarding [ABC report] a form of torture during his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Thursday [JURIST report]. Mukasey [WH fact sheet; PWBT profile] refused to be pinned down on the issue, merely suggesting that if waterboarding is torture, then torture is unconstitutional. He similarly avoided questions about the legality of other specific interrogation techniques, including forced nudity and mock executions, because he considered such comments to be irresponsible "when there are people who are using coercive techniques and who are being authorized to use coercive techniques." Fratto said:

Judge Mukasey, I think, did the best he could to be responsible in not talking about interrogation techniques which, as you all know, we decline to do...these are very complex problems and they don't lend themselves to shorthand responses.

ALSO ON JURIST  Op-ed: Waterboarding: The Key Question for Mukasey | Op-ed: Mukasey on Torture: Of Sins, Mistakes and Crimes

[JURIST] Seymour Lazar pleaded guilty Thursday to obstruction of justice, subscribing to a false tax return and making a false declaration for his role in the Milberg Weiss [firm website] kickback scheme where the firm is accused of paying up to $11.3 million in illegal kickbacks since 1984 to individuals, including Lazar, to serve as lead plaintiffs in class action and shareholder derivative lawsuits. Lazar, now 80, was indicted [text, PDF; JURIST report] in May 2006 along with the firm, then known as Milberg Weiss Bershad & Schulman, and former name partners David J. Bershad and Steven G. Schulman. Lazar will pay a $600,000 fine, forfeit $1.5 million, and could face up to 18 years in federal prison. Prosecutors say that they will seek home detention because of Lazar's failing health. The former attorney received approximately $2.6 million to serve as the lead plaintiff in numerous class action suits, according to prosecutors.

As part of the scheme, certain individuals agreed to serve as class action representatives in exchange for 10 percent of the attorney fees eventually gathered by Milberg Weiss. This kickback was not revealed to the judge overseeing litigation, and the named plaintiffs who collected the kickback money made false statements under oath concerning the payments. Three individuals pleaded guilty [JURIST report] in connection with the scheme in May 2006, and former Milberg Weiss name partner David Bershad pleaded guilty [JURIST report] to conspiracy charges in July. The firm pleaded not guilty [JURIST report] in July. Last month, Schulman agreed to plead guilty to racketeering, and to forfeit $1.85 million and pay a $250,000 fine. Another former Milberg Weiss partner, William S. Lerach, reached an agreement with prosecutors last month to plead guilty [press release; JURIST report] to conspiracy to obstruct justice and will forfeit $7.75 million to the government, pay a $250,000 fine, and will serve one to two years in prison. Milberg Weiss co-founder Melvyn Weiss pleaded not guilty [JURIST report] earlier this week to conspiracy, racketeering, obstruction of justice and making false statements. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Georgia Supreme Court granted a stay of execution [order, PDF; press release, PDF] Thursday to convicted killer Jack Alderman. The death row inmate was scheduled to die Friday at 7PM ET and had already selected his last meal. The court said it granted the stay pending a US Supreme Court ruling in Baze v. Rees (07-5439)[docket; cert. petition, PDF], a case challenging lethal injection as unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. The Georgia court had initially denied a stay [JURIST report], but said it was also influenced by the US Supreme Court's decision [order, PDF; JURIST report] Wednesday to stop an execution that was scheduled in Virginia.

Georgia, like Nevada and 35 other states, uses a controversial three-drug mixture [DPIC backgrounder] of an anesthetic, a muscle paralyzer and a substance to stop the heart. Several constitutional challenges [JURIST news archive] to lethal injection have arisen across the country, arguing that the first drug fails to make the inmate fully unconscious, thereby making the inmate suffer excruciating pain when the heart-stopping drug is injected. Reuters has more. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has local coverage.

[JURIST] Former US military police commander Lt. Col. William Steele was sentenced to two years in prison [press release] Friday after being convicted of unauthorized possession of classified documents, failing to obey an order, and conduct unbecoming an officer by having an inappropriate relationship with an interpreter. Earlier Friday, Steele was found not guilty of more serious charges [JURIST report] of aiding the enemy by providing a cellular phone to detainees while he was in charge of the Camp Cropper detention facility in Iraq. In addition to the two-year prison sentence, Steele was also dismissed him from the US Army and ordered to forfeit all pay and allowances.

Steele was first military officer to face court-martial for aiding the enemy [JURIST report] since the 2003 Iraq invasion, and could have received a life sentence had he been convicted on those charges. Steele's defense lawyer said Monday in court-martial proceedings that Steele was trying to make sure that detainees under his control were treated humanely and was making an effort to improve the US image in Iraq, but prosecutors insisted that Steele ignored rules put in place for detainees. Camp Cropper, located near Baghdad International Airport, is the second-largest US-run military prison [WP report] in Iraq after Camp Bucca in the wake of the closing of the notorious Abu Ghraib prison [JURIST news archive]. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] UK lawmakers will investigate whether the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has secretly held terror suspects [JURIST news archive] on a sovereign British territory in the Indian Ocean, the Guardian reported Friday. The House of Commons' Foreign Affairs Committee will look into the long-standing allegations [JURIST report] of interrogations by the CIA on the island of Diego Garcia, which has been leased to the US for the Diego Garcia naval base [official website]. Lawyers for Reprieve [advocacy website], a UK legal charity representing some detainees at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive], has alleged [report, PDF; executive summary, PDF] that UK overseas territories have been used "to support illegal interstate transfer, enforced disappearance and torture in the context of the 'war on terror'" and has called for UK lawmakers to question US and UK officials about the allegations. Reprieve has accused the UK government of being "systematically complicit" in the disappearance and alleged torture of terror detainees. While the Foreign Affairs Committee has agreed to investigate the allegations, it is not clear whether the UK government knows if the CIA has detained terror suspects at the Diego Garcia naval base. The Guardian has more.

Last month, CIA Director Michael Hayden defended the United States' overseas detention and interrogation policy [JURIST report], saying that the program had obtained vital information about the terrorist threat against the US detailed in a July report [PDF text]. In June, Council of Europe investigator Dick Marty concluded in a report [COE materials; JURIST report] for the Legal Affairs Committee of the Council of Europe that the CIA directly ran secret detention facilities in Europe with the "requisite permissions, protections or active assistance" of European governments, and that the framework for the cooperation was developed secretly among NATO members.

[JURIST] Serbian police arrested four members of the Scorpions paramilitary group suspected of crimes committed in Kosovo [JURIST news archive] during Serbia's 1998-1999 war with ethnic Albanian separatists, the Serbian Interior Ministry announced [press release, in Serbian] Friday. Several members of the Scorpions, one of the most brutal paramilitary groups active in the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s, have already been convicted of killing Bosnian Muslims during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war [OnWar backgrounder], while one member has been convicted of killing ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

Four Scorpions members have already been convicted and sentenced [JURIST report] for their role in the 1995 slaughter of 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica [JURIST news archive]. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] The Canadian government is trying to derail a lawsuit over whether the Canadian Army [official website] in Afghanistan is transferring custody of detainees to Afghan forces to face torture by bogging it down with a flurry of technical arguments, Amnesty International Canada [advocacy website] said Thursday. Amnesty and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association [advocacy website] brought complaints against the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal (CFPM) [official website] in Federal Court [official website] in February, alleging complicity in torture by Canadian personnel serving in Afghanistan as part of the NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Amnesty alleges that Canada is violating its Charter of Rights and Freedoms [text] by denying Afghan detainees access to legal counsel and protection against cruel and unusual punishment. Canadian government lawyers have asked the court to dismiss the case before it reaches the constitutional issues, arguing that the Charter does not apply to Canadian forces in Afghanistan because the army is not an occupying power in Afghanistan.

Last month, the Canadian Army said that independent investigators have found no evidence [JURIST report] to support allegations [JURIST report] that the Army "may have aided or abetted the torture of detainees" by transferring them from Canadian to Afghan custody. The transfer scandal erupted in April when the Toronto Globe and Mail reported [text] that more than 30 terrorism suspects had been tortured by Afghan investigators after being transferred from Canadian custody. Following public outcry, Canada signed a new agreement regarding detainee transfers [JURIST report] with the Afghan government, giving Canada the right to inspect detainees following their transfer. A separate investigation regarding detainee abuse while in Canadian custody is ongoing [JURIST report]. The Canadian Press has more.

[JURIST] Former Argentinian coast guard officer Hector Febres went on trial Thursday on charges of kidnapping and torturing four people at the Navy Mechanics School [BBC backgrounder] during Argentina's Dirty War [Global Security backgrounder; JURIST news archive]. If convicted, Febres faces life in prison.

Last week, an Argentinean court sentenced former military chaplain Christian von Wernich [Trial Watch profile; JURIST report] to life imprisonment for participating in seven homicides, 34 cases of torture and 42 cases of kidnapping during the Dirty War. Von Wernich is the third person to be convicted of crimes against humanity after the Argentinean Supreme Court declared amnesty laws passed in the 1990s to be unconstitutional. Former chief police investigator Miguel Etchecolatz [JURIST report] and former police officer Julio Simon were convicted last year of crimes against humanity during the Dirty War. Additionally, a federal court has revoked the pardons [JURIST report] of former military president Jorge Videla and former naval officer Emilio Eduardo Massera [Trial Watch profiles]. Former Argentinian President Reynaldo Bignone [JURIST report] faces trial in the near future, while former naval officer Ricardo Miguel Cavallo [JURIST news archive] faces charges in Spain. AP has more. La Nacion has local coverage.

[JURIST] Israeli military Brigadier General Yair Golan received a reprimand [press release] Thursday after an investigation [JURIST report] by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) [official website] into allegations that Golan improperly used Palestinians as human shields. Golan, commander of the West Bank army division, will not be promoted for at least the next nine months as part of his reprimand. According to an IDF statement, Golan was reprimanded for using "the 'Preliminary Warning' procedure, contrary to his orders." The IDF defined "preliminary warning" as "an operational procedure used during an arrest operation in which forces use a local resident to warn the residents of a house that an arrest is imminent. The use of the procedure is meant to enable uninvolved civilians to leave the house and allow the suspects to turn themselves in, thus minimizing the risk of injury to civilians." In a 2005 Israel Supreme Court ruling [JURIST report], the high court ruled that another procedure - the "neighbor procedure" - from which the preliminary warning procedure is derived, illegally involved the use of human shields.

Since the 2005 ruling, human rights groups have reported a decline in the once-common use of human shields, though many believe the practice is still employed. In April, video footage [JURIST report] taken in the West Bank showed IDF soldiers ordering two Palestinian teens to stand in front of their vehicle to protect it from stones being thrown by local bystanders during a military raid. The IDF also conducted a criminal probe [JURIST report] into an another human shield incident similarly caught on tape in February. Human shields are a violation of Article 51(7) of the 1977 Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions [text] and other international agreements. AP has more. The Jerusalem Post has local coverage.

[JURIST] The first military officer to face court-martial [JURIST report; press release] for aiding the enemy since the 2003 Iraq invasion was found not guilty Friday of aiding the enemy by providing a cellular phone to detainees. Former US military police commander Lt. Col. William Steele was convicted on three lesser charges [JURIST report] of unauthorized possession of classified documents, failing to obey an order, and for conduct unbecoming an officer by having an inappropriate relationship with an interpreter. Steele faced a possible life sentence if convicted by the military judge of aiding the enemy, and faces up to ten years in prison for his conviction on the other charges.

Steele's defense lawyer said Monday in court-martial proceedings that Steele was trying to make sure that detainees under his control were treated humanely and was making an effort to improve the US image in Iraq, but prosecutors insisted that Steele ignored rules put in place for detainees. Camp Cropper, located near Baghdad International Airport, is the second-largest US-run military prison [WP report] in Iraq after Camp Bucca in the wake of the closing of the notorious Abu Ghraib [JURIST news archive] prison. The US emptied [JURIST report] Abu Ghraib and transferred those detainees to the Iraqi government in 2006. Cropper currently has some 3.000 inmates. AP has more. Reuters has additional coverage.