[JURIST] The US Department of Defense said Wednesday that two charges have been referred [PDF text; press release] against Guantanamo Bay detainee Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi [DOD materials; GlobalSecurity profile]. The military commission charges referred are "providing material support to terrorism and conspiring with Usama bin Laden and other al Qaeda members to target, attack and murder civilians; attack civilian objects; commit murder and destroy property in violation of the law of war; commit terrorism; and provide material support to terrorism."

According to the Defense Department's statement Wednesday:

The charges allege that between 1996 and 2001, Al Qosi personally served as an armed guard and driver for Usama bin Laden. Until about 1998, Al Qosi is alleged to have provided logistical support by obtaining supplies and provisions for Al Qaeda, an international terrorist group dedicated to opposing non-Islamic governments with force and violence, at a compound near Jalalabad known as the "Star of Jihad." It is further alleged that from 1998 through 2001, al Qosi lived at an al Qaeda compound near Kandahar, Afghanistan, with other al Qaeda members, including Usama bin Laden, where he provided security, transportation, and supply services. Between 1998 and 2001 he allegedly traveled from the Kandahar compound to the front line near Kabul, where he fought in support of al Qaeda as part of a mortar crew.

The charge sheet sets out that in 2001, Al Qosi, armed with a Kalashnikov rifle, evacuated the Kandahar compound and traveled to Kabul, then to Jalalabad, and then into the Tora Bora Mountains to provide transportation, security and support to Usama bin Laden and other al Qaeda members.

[JURIST] A federal jury in the US District Court for the District of Connecticut [official website] on Wednesday convicted [DOJ press release] a former sailor of providing material support to terrorists and disclosing confidential national defense information. Hassan Abu-Jihaad, formerly known as Paul R. Hall, was a signalman on the USS Benfold [official website] in 2001, when prosecutors alleged that he passed sensitive information to the online organization and terrorist support network Azzam Publications [BBC report]. A grand jury indicted [press release] Abu-Jihaad in March 2007. Abu-Jihaad faces up to 25 years in prison at his May 23 sentencing. His lawyers plan to appeal. AP has more.

The charges against Abu-Jihaad stem from the case against Babar Ahmad [advocacy website; BBC profile], who was extradited [JURIST report] from the United Kingdom to the United States in November 2006 for conspiring to kill Americans and running Azzam Publications. Ahmad was indicted in the US [arrest warrant and criminal complaint, PDF] in October 2004.

[JURIST] The government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will refuse to execute Ali Hassan al-Mahid [BBC profile; JURIST news archive], better known in the Western media as "Chemical Ali," over the Iraqi Presidency Council's decision not to approve the death sentences of al-Mahid's two co-defendants, an Iraqi government spokesperson told AP Wednesday. The Presidency Council approved al-Mahid's execution [JURIST report] last week, but refused to approve the executions of former deputy head of army operations Hussein Rashid Mohammed and former defense minister Sultan Hashim al-Taie, prompting criticism [JURIST report] that the Presidency Council was acting outside its authority by attempting to reduce Mohammed and al-Taie's sentences. The spokesperson said that the Iraqi government would refuse to take custody of al-Mahid from US forces currently holding him until the Presidency Council reverses its position on the other two sentences.

All three were sentenced to death [JURIST report] last year by the Iraqi High Tribunal [official website] for their roles in the deaths of tens of thousands of Kurds during the Anfal campaign [HRW backgrounder] of 1988. The Tribunal's Appeals Chamber upheld the death sentences [JURIST report] in September. Under Iraqi law, the executions were supposed to have taken place 30 days after the men were sentenced, meaning that the men should have been executed no later than October 4. Iraq's Presidency Council nonetheless refused to sign any execution order [JURIST report] until reversing its position last week. AP has more.

[JURIST] Mexican drug lord Francisco Rafael Arellano-Felix was released from a US prison Tuesday and has returned to Mexico, according to a source at the Mexican Attorney General's office [official website, in Spanish]. Arellano-Felix ran the Arellano-Felix cartel [PBS backgrounder] until his 1993 arrest. He served more than 11 years in prison in Mexico on drug and illegal-weapons charges, before he became the first major drug dealer to be extradited from Mexico to the US [JURIST report] in 2006. He pleaded guilty [press release, PDF] in San Diego federal court in June 2007 to conspiracy to distribute cocaine and to possession with intent to distribute cocaine and was later sentenced [press release, PDF] to six years in prison. A US official said that Arellano-Felix had received credit for time served while awaiting extradition to the US. Reuters has more.

The cartel was once run by a family of seven brothers and four sisters. One of Arellano-Felix's younger brothers, Francisco Javier Arellano-Felix, is the second of the cartel leaders to face drug-related charges. In September 2007, he pleaded guilty [JURIST report] to running a continuing criminal enterprise and conspiracy to launder money.

[JURIST] The UK House of Commons Wednesday voted 311-248 against putting ratification of the new EU reform treaty [JURIST news archive], properly known as the Treaty of Lisbon [official website; PDF text], to a public vote, thereby rejecting proposals for a national referendum. Parliament itself will now consider whether to ratify the treaty, drafted to replace the failed European Constitution [JURIST news archive]. The treaty must be ratified by all 27 EU member state signatories before it can take effect. Influential UK Conservative Party donor Stuart Wheeler [BBC profile] launched a legal effort [JURIST report] in January to force the British government to put the ratification of the treaty to a public vote, arguing that Prime Minister Gordon Brown [official website] has broken a pledge to hold a referendum on the pact warranting judicial review. BBC News has more.

Last year, UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs David Miliband [official profile] similarly rejected calls for a general referendum on the treaty, instead insisting [transcript] that it was sufficiently different from the earlier draft European Constitution that would have been put to a popular vote [JURIST report]. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair rejected the referendum option [JURIST report] earlier last year before leaving office.

[JURIST] US District Judge Adalberto Jordan of the Southern District of Florida [official website] Tuesday ordered former Peruvian military official Maj. Telmo Ricardo Hurtado to pay $37 million in damages to two survivors [CJA case materials] of the 1985 Accomarca massacre [AP file report] and the estates of their slain family members after previously ruling that Hurtado had committed torture, war crimes and crimes against humanity [complaint, PDF]. Sixty-nine civilians died during the incident when Peruvian state forces raided a village in search of Shining Path [FAS backgrounder] guerrillas. A hearing to consider his deportation to Peru is scheduled for March 26. AP has more.

Hurtado was arrested [JURIST report] in April 2007 for violating US immigration laws, along with former Peruvian military official Juan Manuel Rivera-Rondon and former Argentinean military officer Ernesto Guillermo Barreiro [Desaparecidos profile]. All three are suspected of war atrocities in their home countries. The District Court previously sentenced [DOJ press release] Hurtado to six months in prison in July 2007 on one count of visa fraud and one count of making a false statement to a federal agency.

[JURIST] UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour [official profile] told members of her staff Wednesday that she will not seek a second term [JURIST report] when her four-year commission ends on June 30, confirming a Monday report [text] by the Washington Post. Arbour reportedly did not specify a reason for her decision, but said she plans to make it official in an address to the UN Human Rights Council [official website; JURIST news archive] on Friday. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon [official website] has already accepted Arbour's decision not to seek an additional four-year appointment. Reuters has more.

Arbour was appointed [JURIST report] to her position in 2004 after five years as a justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. She succeeded Sergio Vieira de Mello [BBC obituary], who was killed in a 2003 suicide bomb attack on UN offices in Baghdad. Arbour served as chief war crimes prosecutor for the UN in the late 1990s.

[JURIST] The number of discrimination charges against private employers filed with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) [official website] increased by nine percent in 2007 [press release], the biggest annual increase since the early 1990s, according to EEOC statistics [charge statistics] released Wednesday. Of the 82,792 complaints filed with the EEOC in 2007, 37 percent covered allegations of racial discrimination and 30.1 percent were based on alleged sex discrimination. Retaliation charges accounted for 32.2 percent of all filings, surpassing even sex-based charges. In 2007, the EEOC resolved 72,442 private sector discrimination complaints and recovered approximately $345 million in compensation for those who had filed discrimination charges. AP has more.

In February 2006, the EEOC reported that discrimination charges against private employers declined by five percent in 2005 [press release; JURIST report], the third straight year the number of complaints fell. EEOC officials pointed to several factors as potential causes of the decrease, including the EEOC's outreach and prevention efforts as well as a general economic slowdown. The EEOC is charged with enforcing federal anti-discrimination laws [EEOC materials] among private employers. The US Department of Justice enforces the federal anti-discrimination statutes for government workers.

[JURIST] FBI Director Robert Mueller [official profile] told the US Senate Judiciary Committee in testimony [prepared statement] Wednesday that the FBI had inappropriately accessed private citizens' communication and financial records in 2006 through national security letters (NSLs) [FAS backgrounder; example, PDF], according to an as-yet-unreleased report by the DOJ Office of the Inspector General. A March 2007 DOJ report on the FBI's use of NSLs between 2003 and 2005 previously criticized the Bureau [JURIST report] for ineffective management, monitoring and reporting of the program, leading to privacy breaches. In response, the FBI published new draft guidelines [JURIST report] on the use of NSLs in June 2007. The new guidelines required FBI agents to identify the specific information being requested and justify its necessity pursuant to an investigation.

The DOJ Office of the Inspector General [official website] is set to release a follow-up report to the 2007 audit in a few days. Some 20,000 national security letters are issued by the FBI each year, authorizing agents to seize telephone, business and financial records without prior judicial approval. Alleged abuses and overreaching with the letters spurred provisions in the 2005 Patriot Act [JURIST news archive] renewal to provide for greater Congressional oversight of the practice. AP has more.

Mueller also testified Wednesday that the FBI's Civil Rights Program has been extended to include the Civil Rights Cold Case Initiative [press release], allowing the FBI to begin investigations into 26 unsolved civil rights era cases out of the nearly 100 referred to the FBI in 2007. Each of the 26 cases will be assessed for its investigative and legal viability; the FBI will then move forward with cases that require additional investigation. Emphasizing the protection of civil liberties, Mueller said that the FBI has "a longstanding commitment to the security of the United States, while at the same time upholding the Constitution and the rule of law and protecting civil liberties." AP has more.

[JURIST] A former Bosnian Serb leader who was convicted [JURIST report] in 2004 of war crimes committed during the Bosnian War [JURIST news archive] has been transferred [UN press release] to a Danish prison, a Danish Ministry of Justice spokesman said Wednesday. In 2004, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website; JURIST news archive] sentenced Radislav Brdjanin [ICTY case backgrounder] to 30 years in prison. In April 2007, the Appeals Chamber of the ICTY slightly reduced Brdjanin's 32-year sentence [opinion, PDF; ICTY press release] but upheld [JURIST report] the majority of his convictions.

Denmark signed an enforcement of sentences agreement with the ICTY in 2004 whereby Denmark agreed to imprison ICTY-convicted criminals in the country; other countries that have similar agreements [JURIST report] include Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine and the UK. AP has more. The UN Press Centre has additional coverage.

[JURIST] Colombian President Alvaro Uribe [official website; BBC profile] declared Tuesday that his country would bring charges against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] in the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] for allegedly "sponsoring and financing genocide" in Colombia. It was not immediately evident, however, how the ICC could take jurisdiction of such a case [Radio Nederlands report], and no complaint has yet been filed. Uribe's comments, made in reference to mass killings inside Colombia [JURIST news archive] by leftist rebels, come amid rising regional tensions after Ecuador and Venezuela [JURIST news archive] severed diplomatic ties with the country and sent troops to their respective borders. Colombian troops entered Ecuador on Saturday to attack a camp belonging to the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) [MIPT backgrounder] rebel group. While Colombia claims that its actions were a necessary part of its struggle to eradicate terrorism, Ecuador has called the raid an infringement of its sovereignty. According to Colombia, the raid produced documents proving that Chavez had been financing the rebels and that Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa [official website; JURIST news archive] has met with FARC leaders. Both Correa and Chavez have been involved in negotiations with FARC in order to secure the release of hostages, but they deny allegations that they have supported the group.

The Permanent Council of the Organization of American States [official websites] held an emergency meeting Tuesday to try to negotiate a peaceful solution to the crisis, and Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza [official website] has asked the countries [press release] to respect "the principles that govern coexistence among the American nations." The United States is encouraging the countries to use the OAS [VOA report] as a forum to resolve the dispute, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged restraint [statement]. Bloomberg has more. BBC News has additional coverage. El Periodico has local coverage.

[JURIST] A Pakistani court Wednesday dropped five graft cases against Asif Ali Zardari [BBC profile], the new leader of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) [party website] and widower of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto [BBC obituary; JURIST news archive]. The court also released Zardari's assets, which had been frozen pending the corruption cases. The court's decision follows a "reconciliation ordinance" [JURIST report] signed in October by President Pervez Musharraf [BBC profile; JURIST news archive], which granted amnesty to Bhutto and Zardari for corruption charges and cleared the way for her return to Pakistan from self-exile in London and Dubai. Two corruption cases against Zardari are still pending in court, but are expected to be thrown out in later hearings.

Bhutto was assassinated in a suicide attack in December at a political rally in Rawalpindi. She was campaigning in the lead-up to January 8 parliamentary elections, where her party was challenging Musharraf's Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) [party website]. The PML-Q failed to win a majority of seats in the January election, and the PPP is forming a new coalition government with the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) [party website]. AFP has more.

[JURIST] The head of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday refused to disclose a timeline for the agency's compliance with last year's Supreme Court ruling [JURIST report; opinion text] that the EPA has the authority under the Clean Air Act [text; EPA materials] to regulate the emission of "greenhouse gases," such as carbon dioxide, by automobiles. In its decision, the Supreme Court said that it was the responsibility of the EPA to determine whether greenhouse gases pose a public health danger under the Clean Air Act, so as to fall under EPA regulation. During testimony [statement, PDF] before the Senate Appropriations Committee [official website], EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson [official profile] said that his staff was "working on a myriad of issues," but avoided questions from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) [official website] asking how many employees were working to comply with the Court's ruling. Johnson said that the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 [HR 6 materials; WH fact sheet], signed into law in December by President George W. Bush, made the EPA's response to the ruling more difficult than anticipated last year when he had promised to respond to the high Court's decision by fall of 2007.

Also during Tuesday's hearing, Johnson defended the EPA's controversial decision [JURIST report] last year to deny a request from California for a waiver that would have allowed the state to impose stricter greenhouse gas emissions standards on cars and light trucks. Johnson has said that a unified national standard for greenhouse gas regulation is preferable to a state-by-state network of regulations, pointing again to the Energy Independence and Security Act, which will require automakers to reach an industry-wide average fuel efficiency for cars, SUVs and small trucks of 35 miles per gallon by 2020. The California standards would have required car manufacturers to cut emissions by 25 percent from cars and light trucks, and 18 percent from SUVs, starting with the 2009 model year. The EPA has denied several requests [JURIST report] for a full explanation of the emissions waiver rejection. AP has more.