[JURIST] A Bangladeshi anti-corruption court indicted former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina [party profile; JURIST news archive] Sunday on charges [JURIST report] that she received approximately $440,000 in illegal kickbacks on a power-plant deal while in office between 1996 and 2001. If found guilty of the accusations, made in 2007 by the country's Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) [governing statute], Hasina could face up to 14 years in jail. The court will start taking depositions on Wednesday for the case, which has been delayed numerous times because of Hasina's health [JURIST report].

Bangladesh's current anti-corruption crackdown began after President Iajuddin Ahmed declared a state of emergency [JURIST report] in the country and canceled a scheduled national election last January. Eight former Bangladeshi ministers were subsequently accused of corruption and 13 other former ministers and senior politicians were arrested during raids on their homes [JURIST report]. In a separate case, Hasina and eight other people are also accused of involvement in a kickback scheme that awarded lucrative gas contracts to Canadian oil company Niko Resources Ltd [corporate website]. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] The Vietnamese government Saturday deported Nguyen Quoc Quan [advocacy profile], a US citizen sentenced for planning to distribute pro-democracy pamphlets in the communist country. He received a six-month jail term Tuesday, but was credited for time he spent awaiting trial. Quan was one of several arrested in November 2007 for planning to give out literature on behalf of US-based rights group Viet Tan [advocacy website, in Vietnamese]. The Vietnamese government considers Viet Tan and other anti-communist groups [JURIST news archive] to be terrorist organizations, but Viet Tan says it promotes only non-violent political change.

The Communist Party of Vietnam [party website] has consistently rejected calls to permit opposition parties, but pro-democracy groups in Vietnam have recently collaborated to press for democratic reforms and improved human rights, with limited success. Last May, two Vietnamese human rights lawyers were sentenced for violating Article 88 of the Vietnamese criminal code [JURIST report] by advocating that Vietnam adopt a multi-party system of government. In 2006, the US and Vietnam ended a three-year suspension of talks [JURIST report] regarding human rights and religious freedoms [HRW backgrounder] in the country, which began when the US canceled the annual Human Rights Dialogue with Vietnam in 2003 due to what it said was a lack of progress on the issues. AP has more.

[JURIST] Representatives of over 100 governments will meet Monday at the Dublin Diplomatic Conference on Cluster Munitions [official website] to finalize a treaty banning the use, manufacture, and stockpiling of cluster bombs [ICRC materials; JURIST news archive]. Opponents of the ordnance, including some military officers, believe them to be inaccurate weapons designed to spread damage indiscriminately. An estimated 10-40% of the munitions fail to detonate and become a serious hazard for civilian populations. Since the two-day Oslo Conference on Cluster Munitions [conference materials] last February, there have been increasing calls to ban the weapons. Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday urged [AFP report] all governments to adopt the ban.

Last February, 46 of 49 countries participating in the Oslo Conference agreed to an action plan to develop a new international treaty [press release; JURIST report] banning the use of cluster munitions by 2008. Last month the US said it would not attend the 2008 Dublin conference, [JURIST report] echoing June 2007 statements that it does not support a ban on cluster bombs, [JURIST report] but that it is open to negotiations to reduce their impact on civilians by requiring increased reliability, accuracy and visibility of unexploded munitions. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] An Afghan appeals court heard testimony Sunday from journalism student Sayad Parwaz Kambaksh [JURIST news archive], who was sentenced to death [JURIST report] in January for distributing papers questioning gender roles under Islam. Kambaksh denied the accusations in front of a three-judge panel Sunday, saying they were made by Balkh University professors and students with “private hostilities” against him. He told the court that his confessions were the result of torture by the Balkh province intelligence service. Kambaksh had chosen not to be represented by a lawyer for the appeal, but said Sunday he would like one. The court will reconvene next Sunday to give Kambaksh time to meet with counsel and prepare his defense.

Kambaksh was sentenced to death following his trial, where he had no legal representation [JURIST report] and was allowed only three minutes to present his defense. The closed court invoked Article 130 of the Afghanistan Constitution [text] to pass down the death sentence, a penalty for blasphemy consistent with Hanafi [GlobalSecurity backgrounder] law. Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai received international pressure to pardon Kambaksh, but said that he would not intervene [JURIST report] during the pendency of Kambaksh's appeal. AP has more.