[JURIST] A senior Spanish official said Friday that Spanish authorities have initiated legal proceedings to ban two Basque political parties for ties to ETA [BBC backgrounder; JURIST news archive], the armed Basque separatist movement. Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega [official website, in Spanish; backgrounder] said the government has evidence that both the Basque Nationalist Action Party (ANV) [party website] and the Communist Party of the Basque Lands (PCTV) [Wikipedia backgrounder] have close ties to Batasuna [BBC backgrounder], ETA's banned political arm. The government wants to prevent the parties from fielding candidates for a general election schedule for March.

The Supreme Court of Spain [official website, in Spanish] banned Batasuna in 2003 for its refusal to cut ties with ETA. ETA has been blamed for more than 800 deaths in bombings and attacks since the 1960s.

[JURIST] Vidoje Blagojevic [ICTY case backgrounder, PDF], former commander of the Bratunac Brigade of the Bosnian Serb Army, was transferred to Norway [press release] Friday to serve the remainder of his 15-year sentence for his role in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre [BBC timeline, JURIST news archive]. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in 2005 sentenced [JURIST report] Blagojevic to 18 years in prison after convicting him of complicity in genocide, murder, and other crimes. The ICTY appeals chamber reduced Blagojevic's sentence to 15 years when it reversed [judgment summary; JURIST report] his conviction of complicity in genocide, holding that Blagojevic should have been acquitted on those charges because he was not aware that the massacre was going to take place. The court upheld his other convictions on aiding and abetting the persecutions, killings and forcible transfer of Bosnian Muslims.

The ICTY has determined that the 1995 killings of more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslims by government forces at Srebrenica constituted genocide. The two men believed to have masterminded the massacre, Ratko Mladic [ICTY case backgrounder; JURIST news archive] and former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic [ICTY case backgrounder], have yet to be captured. The UN News Service has more.

[JURIST] US Attorney General Michael Mukasey [official profile] said Friday that he does not plan to appoint a special counsel to investigate allegations that the US Central Intelligence Agency ordered the destruction of videotapes showing the interrogation of terror suspects [JURIST news archive], despite requests by some in Congress. At a press briefing, Mukasey said the investigation was opened merely on "some indication - which is a lot less than probable cause - some indication that there was any violation of any federal statute."

Earlier this month, US House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) [official website] sent a letter [text; JURIST report] to Mukasey urging him to either appoint the outside counsel, or to explain why he refrains from doing so. The Department of Justice announced its criminal probe [JURIST report] into the destruction of the tapes earlier this month. The CIA videotaped the interrogation of two al Qaeda suspects in 2002, but said that the tapes were destroyed in 2005 amid concerns that they could be leaked to the public and compromise the identities of the interrogators. AP has more.

[JURIST] Slovenian Interior Minister Dragutin Mate said Friday that a European Union plan to archive and exchange air passenger data [JURIST report] had general support among EU ministers and could take effect as early as 2009. Interior ministers from EU member countries discussed the Passenger Name Record (PNR) plan at a Friday conference [press release] in Slovenia, the current holder of the Presidency of the EU [official website]. Privacy advocates have been critical of the plan and EU officials have expressed similar concerns. EU Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security Franco Frattini [official profile], meanwhile said the system was "absolutely necessary."

Frattini announced the plan last November as part of a package of counter-terrorism proposals [press release, JURIST report]. In July, the EU and US reached a new agreement on passenger data-sharing [JURIST report] under which air carriers will transmit passenger data directly to the US Department of Homeland Security within 15 minutes of a European flight's departure for the US. Reuters has more. AP has additional coverage.

[JURIST] Pakistani lawyers demonstrated in Islamabad Thursday to protest the continued detention of ousted Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry [JURIST news archive]. The government of Pakistan has kept Chaudhry and several other judges and lawyers under preventative detention since President Musharraf declared emergency rule [text; JURIST report] on November 3. According to a CBC News report, a lawyer present at the protest blamed Musharraf for many of the country's problems and said "when there is a free election, all the militancy will stop." With general elections slated for Feb. 18, opposition leaders have said that without an independent judiciary to supervise the vote, there is likely to be rigging.

Earlier this week, a report [text] by Pakistan's The News daily suggested the government may be skirting constitutional limits on detentions [JURIST report]. The Pakistani constitution requires that preventative detention be limited to 90 days unless a review board has extended the detention. Chaudhry has been under virtual house arrest [JURIST report] since at least November 5, when an Army major locked him in his residence and took the keys. The 90-day detention period expires January 31, but the government has not referred his case to a review board, instead saying that because Chaudhry and other deposed judges are not being held under court-ordered detention they therefore do not qualify for review. The Pakistan Bar Council continues to protest the removal of Chaudhry and refuses to recognize the legitimacy of replacement judges who had taken oaths of office under President Pervez Musharraf's now-abrogated Provisional Constitutional Order [text]. CBC News has more.

ALSO ON JURIST  Comment: What future for Pakistan's lawyers' movement?

[JURIST] US District Judge Richard W. Roberts on Thursday ordered [PDF text] the government to submit a report to the court by February 14 detailing why the CIA destroyed videotapes showing the interrogation of terror suspects [JURIST news archive], whether other evidence connected to a Guantanamo Bay detainee's lawsuit may have been destroyed, and what steps the government has taken to preserve relevant evidence. Roberts' ruling is in response to a motion [PDF text; SCOTUSblog report] filed on behalf of Guantanamo Bay detainee Hani Abdullah asking the court to compel the government to report on its compliance with a July 2005 order [PDF text] issued by Roberts requiring the government to "preserve and maintain all evidence, documents, and information, without limitation, now or ever in respondents' possession, custody or control, regarding the individual detained petitioners" in cases brought by several detainees. Several similar motions have been brought in federal court, but Roberts' order is the first to require the government to explain its actions in destroying the tapes. Earlier this month, US District Judge Henry H. Kennedy, Jr. refused to order an inquiry into the CIA's destruction of the tapes and District Judge Alvin Hellerstein is currently considering a motion [JURIST reports] brought on behalf of detainees to hold the CIA in contempt of court for destroying the interrogation videos.

Existence of the videotapes was verified in November after the CIA admitted it had mistakenly denied [JURIST report] that it had recorded interrogations in a court declaration during the trial of 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. CIA Director Michael Hayden acknowledged [statement text] last month that the CIA had videotaped the interrogation of two al Qaeda suspects in 2002, but said that the tapes had been destroyed in 2005 amid concerns that they could be leaked to the public and compromise the identities of the interrogators. The US Justice Department has opened a criminal probe [JURIST report] into the matter, and multiple congressional inquiries are underway. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Mexican military has committed grave human rights abuses, including the torture, rape and murder of civilians, according to a report [press release] from the Mexican National Human Rights Commission [official website] submitted to the Mexican National Congress. According to Commission President Jorge Luis Soberanes Fernandez, the military committed these offenses while trying to combat drug-related crime committed by gangs in areas near the border of the United States. He attributed the abuses to the lack of training that soldiers receive to prepare them to deal with civilian populations.

According to the Commission's Wednesday report, state agents were also responsible for abuses during the 2006 uprising in Oaxaca [BBC backgrounder; JURIST report], as well as for mistreatment of indigenous people and migrant workers. Soberanes Fernandez also denounced the state's failure to protect journalists and media workers from violence in the past year, citing 84 reports of attacks against journalists in 2007 which included four deaths and three disappearances. Reuters has more.