[JURIST] Former Israeli president Moshe Katsav [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] was indicted Thursday on two counts of rape for allegedly assaulting several female employees in the 1990s. The indictment, which was filed in Tel Aviv District Court, charges [Jerusalem Post report] Katsav with two counts of rape, multiple counts of sexual harassment and forced indecent acts, and witness intimidation. The alleged rapes were committed while Katsav was the minister of tourism, while the other alleged acts were committed while Katsav served as president. A Katsav adviser decried the charges [Haaretz report], saying that the evidence against Katsav does not support the charges, and that the indictment was brought against the recommendation of a number of leading Israeli jurists.

The Katsav indictment was announced [JURIST report] two weeks ago by Attorney General Menachem Mazuz. Katsav was originally accused of rape [JURIST report] and sexual assault in 2006. In April, Katsav rejected a controversial plea agreement [JURIST reports], under which he would have been permitted to plead guilty to lesser sex charges of indecent assault, sexual harassment, and obstruction of justice, in exchange for a suspended sentence and the dropping of the rape charges. The deal was heavily criticized [JURIST report] by women's and civil rights activists when it was first made public in 2007. A victim and several rights organizations filed five separate petitions [Haaretz report] to overturn the agreement, arguing that it was contrary to public interest, had no legal reason, and injured the principal of equality before the law. Despite the criticism, Mazuz defended the agreement as necessary to protect the office of the presidency from further injury and spare the country from embarrassment. Katsav resigned the presidency in 2007.

[JURIST] The government of Pakistan President Ali Asif Zardari [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] and his Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) [party website] filed an appeal with the Supreme Court of Pakistan [official website] Thursday, asking the court to review its February decision [JURIST report] banning former prime minister Nawaz Sharif [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] and his brother from holding elected office. The Supreme Court based its decision on a criminal conviction against Sharif, the leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) [party website], for attempting to divert a plane carrying army commander and later president Pervez Musharraf [JURIST news archive] in 1999 during a coup attempt. A government spokesperson said that the appeal [Dawn report] was made in the interest of constitutionalism and the rule of law [BBC report]. The filing of the report was seen by many, including the PML-N, as a condition for ending the recent protests and "long march" [JURIST news archive] against the Zardari government, which culminated in Monday's reinstatement [JURIST report] of Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry [JURIST news archive].

Chaudhry's reinstatement was seen as a positive step for democratic rule in Pakistan. Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani [BBC profile] announced early Monday that the government would reinstate Chaudhry in response to recent protests by members of the lawyers' movement and opposition politicians and supporters. Gilani also ordered government officials to release [Dawn report] anyone arrested during the past week's so-called "long march" [JURIST reports]. Reports first surfaced late Sunday that President Zardari had agreed to reinstate Chaudhry and other judges ousted by Zardari's predecessor Musharraf in November 2007 after his declaration of emergency rule. Sharif and the PML-N have actively campaigned [JURIST report] for Chaudhry's reinstatement, leading a similar "long march" last summer. Chaudhry has always maintained that he is still chief justice [JURIST report] under the Pakistani constitution [text].

[JURIST] US Attorney General Eric Holder [official profile] told reporters Wednesday that the Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] will consider accepting in the US the 17 Uighur Guantanamo Bay detainees [JURIST news archive] who have been cleared for release. The DOJ is still exploring where to transfer cleared detainees, and has declined to repatriate the Uighurs despite Chinese demands [JURIST report] because they have been linked to a militant separatist group and could face torture upon their return. Holder's comments follow the February ruling [opinion, PDF; JURIST report] of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit [official website], which rejected an October district court order [opinion and order, PDF; JURIST report] supporting the US release of Uighurs. The circuit court reserved such a decision for either the executive or legislative branch.

On Monday, Holder and other top officials from the Obama administration met with leaders [JURIST report] from the European Union (EU) [official website] to discuss plans to transfer detainees from Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] to European countries, assuring EU leaders that the US will provide them with thorough background information about the detainees. In February, Sweden's Migration Court granted asylum [judgment, PDF, in Swedish; JURIST report] to a former Uighur Guantanamo detainee, overruling a previous asylum denial. The city of Munich, Germany, home to a sizeable Uighur community, has expressed willingness to welcome the 17 Uighurs [The Local report]. In 2006, Albania granted asylum [JURIST report] to five Uighurs after their release from Guantanamo.

[JURIST] A spokesperson for the US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] said Wednesday that the DOJ will limit prison restrictions on John Walker Lindh [BBC profile; JURIST news archive], a California man known as the "American Taliban." Lindh is serving a 20-year sentence in an Indiana federal prison after pleading guilty [plea agreement] in 2002 to supplying services to the Taliban. DOJ spokesman Dean Boyd said certain restrictions on Lindh will be lifted [AP report] Friday. Boyd did not discuss the details of the restrictions, but Lindh's lawyer said [Los Angeles Times report] Lindh will be allowed to visit with more people.

After pleading guilty to a charge [indictment] of aiding the Taliban, Lindh repeatedly asked then-president George W. Bush to reduce his 20-year sentence. Bush declined [JURIST report] to do so. The Associated Press [media website] then sued the DOJ to gain access under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) [text] to Lindh's petition for commutation. In December, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed [opinion, PDF; JURIST report] the lower court's ruling that Lindh's petition fell under a FOIA invasion-of-privacy exception and as such was not available to the public.

[JURIST] The UK will publish the guidance it gives to intelligence officers for questioning suspects overseas, Prime Minister Gordon Brown [official website] told parliament in a written statement [text] Wednesday. Restating the UK's unequivocal condemnation of torture, Brown said that making the applicable interrogation standards public will "protect the reputation of [UK] security and intelligence services and ... reassure ourselves that everything has been done to ensure that our practices are in line with United Kingdom and international law." The guidelines are expected to be published by May, following consolidation and review by the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), a Cabinet Office [official websites] committee set up to conduct oversight of UK intelligence activities. Brown charged Intelligence Services Commissioner Sir Peter Gibson with monitoring guideline compliance, continuing to resist calls for a judge-led inquiry [Guardian report]. He noted that the civil courts are the appropriate place for allegations of criminal misconduct to be tried, but that decisions about prosecution must follow an investigation by the attorney general [official website]. Brown also directed the ISC to update its 2005 detainee treatment report [text, PDF] and 2007 rendition report [text, PDF] in light of any new developments or relevant information.

The decision comes amidst allegations from British resident and former Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainee Binyam Mohamed [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] that British intelligence agents were complicit in his torture [JURIST report] in Morocco. Mohamed alleges that after being transferred to Morocco under the US extraordinary rendition [JURIST news archive] program, British MI5 [official website] fed interrogation questions to Moroccan authorities. Earlier this month, the UK government's independent reviewer of terror laws called for a judicial inquiry [JURIST report] into British complicity in US rendition and torture. British media reported that UN special rapporteur on torture Manfred Nowak told British ministers that MI5 may have been complicit [JURIST report] in torture committed while detainees including Mohamed were in US custody. Mohamed was returned to the UK [JURIST report] in March following seven years of detention, including five at Guantanamo Bay, where he was held on charges of conspiring to commit terrorism. Those charges were dismissed [JURIST report] in October, but Mohamed remained in custody while US authorities considered filing new charges.

[JURIST] Israeli forces arrested 12 Hamas leaders during raids in the West Bank Thursday. Among those seized [AFP report; Haaretz report, in Hebrew] were former Palestine deputy prime minister Nasseredin al-Shaer and Hamas officials Adnan Asfur and Raafat Nassif. The seizures came after Israel and Hamas failed to reach an agreement [AFP report] on a prisoner exchange on Tuesday. Israel did not obtain the release of Gilad Shalit [JURIST news archive], an Israeli soldier who was captured by Hamas in 2006, despite offering to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Hamas blames the failure of the negotiations on Israel [Haaretz report], claiming that the Palestinian prisoners Israel was willing to release would have faced deportation from the West Bank.

Soon after Shalit's capture, Israel seized Hamas leaders [JURIST report] including Palestinian Cabinet ministers and lawmakers. Prisoner exchange negotiations between Israel and Hamas have failed before, although Egypt has been attempting to mediate [JURIST reports] such negotiations since 2006. Human rights advocates have recently called for the investigation [JURIST report] of recent events in Gaza [BBC backgrounder].

[JURIST] The US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] will no longer prosecute owners of medical marijuana facilities that do not violate state law, Attorney General Eric Holder [official profile] said Wednesday. Although the use of medical marijuana violates federal law, thirteen states have legalized its use. Holder warned, however, that the federal government would continue to prosecute dispensers that violate state law [AP report], including dispensers that are fronts for drug dealers. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) [official website] opposed Holder's decision [AP report], arguing that marijuana leads to harder drugs. Holder did not comment on whether the DOJ would continue to prosecute medical marijuana cases already underway. Also Wednesday, a bill legalizing medical marijuana in New Hampshire survived a committee vote [Union Leader report] in the state House of Representatives [official website]. The house will vote on the bill next week.

Under the Bush administration, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) [official website] routinely raided medical marijuana distributors because they violate federal law. The DEA raided medical marijuana facilities as recently as February [Washington Times report] to the disappointment of President Barack Obama, who, during his campaign, pledged to end raids [Boston Globe report]. Michigan became the most recent state to legalize the use of medical marijuana by passing a proposition [JURIST report] last November. The US Supreme Court's 2005 decision in Gonzales v. Raich [opinion text; JURIST report] upheld Congress's power to criminalize the growth and personal use of marijuana for medical purposes.

[JURIST] The US Judicial Conference [official website] has published a revised Code of Conduct [text, PDF] for federal judges in the country. The revision, published Tuesday, updates the code from its last revision [text] in 1992, and the conference said the changes were intended to simplify and clarify the code by condensing its sections and using plain language. The revised version also newly-defines the "appearance of impropriety," the standard by which judges should recuse themselves from hearing a case, and broadens the definition of what constitutes inappropriate influence on a judge. Changes to the code will take effect on July 1. The conference also asked Congress to create 63 new federal judgeships.

The US Judicial Conference is made up of [membership roster, PDF] senior circuit and district court judges. It operates under a mandate [28 USC § 331] to monitor federal courts and promulgate rules providing for their fair and efficient operation. What constitutes the appearance of impropriety or bias by a judge is something that has recently gained much attention in both federal and state courts. Earlier this month, the US Supreme Court heard arguments [argument transcript, PDF; JURIST report] in a case where they will determine whether there is a constitutional basis for the Court to set an "appearance of bias" standard for state courts.

[JURIST] The Italian judge presiding over the kidnapping trail of 26 Americans and seven Italians [JURIST news archive] on Wednesday postponed the trial until April 22. Judge Oscar Magi suspended the case [AP report] in order to allow Italy's Constitutional Court [official website, in Italian] to explain its ruling last week [Reuters report] excluding certain evidence from the case on the grounds of national security [JURIST report]. The case involves 25 American CIA agents and one US Air Force colonel being tried in absentia, along with seven Italian military intelligence officials, who are charged in the 2003 abduction and rendition [JURIST news archive] of Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr [JURIST news archive]. The Constitutional Court had issued a ruling excluding key evidence based on prosecutors' violations of national security laws when they obtained classified evidence of the identities of members of Italy's Military Intelligence and Security Service (SISMI) [official website, in Italian] and their relationships with US CIA agents. While the ruling is seen as damaging to the criminal case, lead prosecutor Armando Spataro said he approved [AFP report] of the delay for clarification purposes.

Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, was seized on the streets of Milan by CIA agents with the help of Italian operatives, then allegedly transferred to Egypt and tortured by Egypt's State Security Intelligence before being released [JURIST reports] in February 2007. The trial has been delayed many times through out its course. Most recently, Magi delayed the trial for three months [JURIST report] in December after the government said the testimony could compromise Italy’s national security.

[JURIST] New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (D) [official website] on Wednesday signed a bill [text, PDF; HB 285 materials] which repealed [press release] the use of the death penalty [JURIST news archive] in the state. The bill replaces the use of capital punishment with a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for capital felony convictions. Richardson spoke about his reasons for signing the bill, admitting that he changed his view of capital punishment during his time as governor and encouraging other states to abolish the death penalty:

Throughout my adult life, I have been a firm believer in the death penalty as a just punishment – in very rare instances, and only for the most heinous crimes. I still believe that. But six years ago, when I took office as Governor of the State of New Mexico, I started to challenge my own thinking on the death penalty. Regardless of my personal opinion about the death penalty, I do not have confidence in the criminal justice system as it currently operates to be the final arbiter when it comes to who lives and who dies for their crime. If the State is going to undertake this awesome responsibility, the system to impose this ultimate penalty must be perfect and can never be wrong. But... [t]he system is inherently defective. DNA testing has proven that. Innocent people have been put on death row all across the country.

From an international human rights perspective, there is no reason the United States should be behind the rest of the world on this issue. Many of the countries that continue to support and use the death penalty are also the most repressive nations in the world. That’s not something to be proud of. In a society which values individual life and liberty above all else, where justice and not vengeance is the singular guiding principle of our system of criminal law, the potential for wrongful conviction and, God forbid, execution of an innocent person stands as anathema to our very sensibilities as human beings. That is why I’m signing this bill into law.

[JURIST] A judge for the Supreme Court of Singapore [official website] ruled Thursday that a Wall Journal Journal Asia (WSJ-Asia) [media website] editor was in contempt of court and personally liable for damages [press release, PDF] for publishing two editorials and a letter that criticized the impartiality of the city-state's judiciary. Judge Tay Yong Kwang ordered Melanie Kirkpatrick to pay USD $13,000 in fines and court costs for being in charge of the newspaper's editorial section when the articles were published. The case [complaint, PDF] is the second such contempt of court case brought by the Singapore attorney general [official website] over the same articles. In October, Tay held that publisher Daniel Hertzberg and proprietor Christine Glancery, were in contempt of Court [JURIST report] and fined them USD $16,500 plus court costs. In the complaint, the attorney general argued it was important to pursue contempt of court charges against individual members of the WSJ-Asia to serve as a deterrence against future such publications.

The Applicant’s objective in bringing these proceedings against the Respondent is to ensure that the editor who is responsible for the publication of the 3 offending items in WSJ Asia is held accountable for her actions. The Applicant’s understanding of the representations from the Respondent’s solicitors that the Respondent is in charge of the day-to-day operations of the ‘Editorials and Opinion’ section of the WSJ Asia and has final editorial responsibility over its contents is that the Respondent is directly responsible for the publication of the 3 offending items in WSJ Asia.