[JURIST] Fourteen accused Zayidi Shi'ite [GlobalSecurity backgrounder] rebels, among them outspoken Yemeni journalist Abdel Karim al-Khaywani [advocacy profile], were sentenced in a Yemeni court Monday for their roles in an ongoing Shi'ite uprising. Thirteen of the rebels received sentences of up to ten years in prison and one was sentenced to death for plotting attacks on Yemeni military bases. Yemeni authorities accuse Zayidi Shi'ite of trying to impose Shi'ite Islamic law [BBC backgrounder] on the country, but group members say they are only defending their community from a hostile government.

Al-Khaywani was sentenced to six years after he was caught carrying pictures and news reports of clashes between the Zayidi Shi'ite and the Yemeni Army; the Yemeni government had requested news agencies to refrain from reporting on the conflict. Amnesty International recently shortlisted al-Khaiwani [AI press release] for a special award honoring "human rights journalism under threat." Reuters has more. BBC News has additional coverage. The Yemen Observer has local coverage.

[JURIST] The US District Court for the District of Columbia [court website] began hearings Monday in Cobell v. Kempthorne [plaintiff's website; DOJ materials], a class-action suit brought in 1996 alleging US government mismanagement of trust funds for a group of some 500,000 Native Americans and their heirs. Judge James Robertson [official profile] will decide how much the government owes the class members for land-use violation penalties and royalties that plaintiffs say the US Department of the Interior (DOI) [official website; DOI Indian Trust website] has not paid since 1887. In March 2007, the plaintiffs rejected [JURIST report] a $7 billion settlement proposal from the US government, and have since asserted that the DOI owes them $58 billion. In January, Robertson ruled [text, PDF; JURIST report] that the DOI "unreasonably delayed" the accounting of billions of dollars of American Indian money, holding that it was impossible for the DOI or for Congress to remedy the breach. AP has more. The Missoulian has additional coverage.

In July 2005, Judge Royce Lamberth ruled [text, PDF], that the DOI must apologize to the plaintiffs [JURIST report] for its handling of the trust, and must admit that information being provided to them regarding outstanding lost royalties on earnings from Indian land may be unreliable. Lamberth also held two former Secretaries of the Interior, Gale Norton [White House profile] and Bruce Babbitt, in contempt and forced the department to protect Indian files by disconnecting its computers from the Internet [JURIST report]. In 2006, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit removed Lamberth [JURIST report] for alleged lack of objectivitgy and reassigned the case to Robertson.

[JURIST] The Supreme Court of Virginia [official website] has upheld [ruling, PDF] a woman's visitation rights regarding a child who was born to her former lesbian partner while the two were engaged in a same-sex union under Vermont law [Vermont Act 91 text]. Without reaching the merits of the case [press release], the court ruled Friday for Janet Jenkins against Lisa Miller, finding that Miller's original complaint against visitation was effectively identical to one on which a lower court had already ruled and for which she had missed the deadline to appeal. In that earlier case, the Virginia Court of Appeals ruled [PDF text; JURIST report] that Virginia state courts had a constitutional obligation to defer to the rulings of Vermont courts in a child custody dispute involving two lesbian partners who had entered into a Vermont civil union. AP has more.

A court in Virginia granted full custody [JURIST report] to Miller in 2004, with the judge declaring that since Virginia law does not legally recognize unions between members of the same sex, Miller was the child's "sole parent." In August 2005, the Vermont Supreme Court ruled that Vermont had exclusive jurisdiction [JURIST report] over the case since the couple's civil union had taken place under Vermont laws.

[JURIST] Former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina [official profile; JURIST news archive] will be released from detention Monday to seek US treatment for health issues including high blood pressure and severe ear and eye conditions. Bangladesh's emergency government charged Hasina with corruption for allegedly receiving illegal kickbacks in a scheme to award lucrative gas contracts and a power-plant deal [JURIST reports]. She has resisted medical treatment in Bangladesh [JURIST report] because of security concerns, and a court granted a petition by her lawyers to allow the trial to continue in her absence after a government medical board suggested she go abroad immediately for treatment. Former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Khaleda Zia [UN profile; JURIST news archive], who has also been detained and charged [JURIST report] with corruption, said Monday that she would not leave the country [The Daily Star report] for treatment of arthritis and knee problems. It is unclear whether government officials would prevent the former prime ministers from re-entering the country [JURIST report], as they did for a short time last year. BBC has more. The Daily Star has local coverage.

Bangladesh's current anti-corruption crackdown began last February as eight former Bangladeshi ministers were accused of corruption [JURIST report] and 13 other former ministers and senior politicians were arrested in raids on their homes [JURIST report] after Bangladeshi President Iajuddin Ahmed declared a state of emergency [JURIST report] in the country and cancelled a scheduled national election. In May, Bangladeshi authorities approved a Truth and Accountability Commission [JURIST report] that would allow corrupt officials and businessmen to avoid jail time by publicly confessing their misdeeds and returning any illegally obtained money. The commission is designed to ease the burden on the country's Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) [governing statute; JURIST news archive], which faces a huge backlog and which government officials say could take decades to prosecute all of the offenders.

[JURIST] The Pentagon has said that an additional 108 military lawyers and paralegals will be assigned to work on the cases of prisoners detained at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive], twice the current number. Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann [JURIST news archive], legal advisor to the Office of Military Commissions, made the announcement last Thursday, the same day as five men charged with plotting the Sept. 11 attacks were arraigned [JURIST report] before a military commission at Guantanamo bay, a critical move in the legal proceedings against some of the 19 detainees [DOD military commissions information page] awaiting trial.

Hartmann said that the additional lawyers will ensure fair trials, but critics argue that the allocation of additional resources is political [TIME report], designed to finish the commissions before the November elections and to avoid the possible result of a Supreme Court ruling expected later this month on whether federal courts may consider the legality of Guantanamo detentions [writ of certiorari, PDF; oral arguments transcript, PDF]. Hartmann himself was recently disqualified [JURIST report] by a US military judge from participating in the trial of Guantanamo detainee Salim Hamdan because he was deemed too closely associated with the prosecution. Reuters has more. American Forces Press Service has additional coverage.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] handed down four decisions Monday, including Allison Engine v. United States [JURIST report], where the Court ruled that the Federal False Claims Act [31 USC 3729 text] is not limited to claims of misspent funds submitted to a federal government agency, but also applies to claims submitted to a federal contractor that will ultimately be paid with federal money. The Court upheld a US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruling [opinion, PDF], finding that the statute requires only "that the defendant made a false record or statement for the purpose of getting 'a false or fraudulent claim paid or approved by the Government.'" Read the Court's unanimous opinion [text] per Justice Alito. AP has more.

In Quanta v. LG [Duke Law backgrounder; JURIST report], the Court ruled that a patent holder's rights may be exhausted through certain license agreements. LG Electronics held a patent on certain computer components, but had an agreement with Intel Corp. [corporate websites] that let Intel manufacture those parts. Quanta Computer [corporate website] bought the patented parts from Intel and used them to make notebook computers. LG Electronics sued Quanta, arguing that Quanta infringed its patents not by buying the parts but by using them to make computers. The ruling overturns a July 2006 US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision [opinion, PDF], with the Court finding that "the authorized sale of an article that substantially embodies a patent exhausts the patent holder’s rights and prevents the patent holder from invoking patent law to control postsale use of the article." Read the Court's unanimous opinion [text] per Justice Thomas. AP has more.

In Engquist v. Oregon Dept. of Agriculture [Duke Law backgrounder; JURIST report], the Court ruled that a federal employee who is not a member of a protected class can not sue for discrimination that was directed solely against her. The Ninth Circuit Court held [opinion, PDF] that an Indian-born woman who alleged discrimination from her supervisor could not sue under a "class-of-one theory." The Court reversed, finding that "the practical problem with allowing class-of-one claims to go forward in this context is not that it will be too easy for plaintiffs to prevail, but that governments will be forced to defend a multitude of such claims in the first place, and courts will be obliged to sort through them in a search for the proverbial needle in a haystack." Read the Court's opinion per Justice Roberts, and a dissent [texts] from Justice Stevens, who was joined by Justices Souter and Ginsburg. AP has more.

In Bridge v. Phoenix Bond & Indemnity [Duke Law backgrounder; JURIST report], the Court ruled that a victim of mail fraud does not need to prove that he relied on a misrepresentation made by the defendant to prevail in a civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) [text] action, holding "RICO’s text provides no basis for imposing a first-party reliance requirement." The ruling affirms a decision [PDF text] by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Read the Court's unanimous opinion [text] per Justice Thomas.

[JURIST] Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, the military defense lawyer for Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr (DOD materials; JURIST news archive] said Sunday that personnel at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] were ordered to destroy hand-written notes made during the interrogations of terror suspects. He stated that the Pentagon's "standard operating procedures" manual required hand-written notes to be destroyed after a more general typed summary of an interrogation had been created. Kuebler announced plans to push for the dismissal of charges against Khadr because the possibility of lost evidence of torture prevents him from challenging the confession's legitimacy. AP has more.

Khadr, now 21, was 15 when he was captured by US forces. He faces life imprisonment after allegedly throwing a grenade that killed one US soldier and wounded another while fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2002. He was charged [charge sheet, PDF; JURIST report] in April 2007 with murder, attempted murder, conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism, as well as spying.

[JURIST] Members of the Pakistan lawyers' movement [New York Times backgrounder] Monday followed through on last month's promise to protest from city to city [Daily Times report; JURIST report] in a call for the restoration of judges ousted by President Pervez Musharraf during his emergency rule [JURIST report] last November. Leaders of the two main coalition parties, the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) [party websites], pledged in February to restore the judiciary, and the PPP has since submitted a proposed constitutional amendment package [JURIST report]. The march is scheduled to end with a sit-in at the Parliament in Islamabad late this week, but lawyers have said that the protests will continue until the government restores the judiciary and reverses any unconstitutional actions taken by Musharraf. AFP has more.

Musharraf announced Saturday that he would not step down or go into exile [Dawn report], prompting protesters to lead chants calling for his resignation. PML-N officials have generally favored Musharraf's resignation or impeachment, and released a "charge sheet" [JURIST report; Dawn charge sheet overview] against him. PPP leaders have advocated cooperating with Musharraf and amending the constitution, but adopted a stricter stance after Saturday's declaration, saying Musharraf is only the president by default [Daily Times report] rather than by election.