Indiana appeals court partially overturns sex offender residence law

[JURIST] The Indiana Court of Appeals [official website] Tuesday ruled [opinion, PDF] that a 2006 state law [Indiana Code 35-42-4-11 text] barring convicted sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school, public park or youth center is unconstitutional as applied to offenders who purchased their homes before the law went into effect. The ruling upholds a lower court decision finding that...

Russian gallery director charged for show of banned art

[JURIST] The curator of a Russian art gallery has been charged with "inciting hatred" [JURIST report] for hosting an exhibit of art banned from other galleries, including pieces that mocked the Russian Orthodox Church [official website] and the nation's military, the Independent reported Wednesday. Yury Samodurov, director of the Sakharov Museum [museum backgrounder] in Moscow, named after Soviet...

DOD stalling on security clearances for civilian Guantanamo lawyers: ACLU

[JURIST] The US Department of Defense has still not issued security clearances [ACLU press release] to civilian lawyers seeking to participate in the defense of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] and other detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [advocacy website] said Tuesday. ACLU Anthony Romero said that not one...

US immigration agents face problems transiting drugged deportees overseas

[JURIST] US immigration agents transiting involuntarily sedated immigration deportees through foreign countries have been challenged by local authorities, the Washington Post reported Wednesday. The paper said French and Belgian law enforcement officials had raised objections to the sedation of individuals by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) [official website] agents at stopovers ...

Italy court rules Berlusconi can be called to testify in CIA rendition case

[JURIST] Italian Judge Oscar Magi ruled on Wednesday that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] can be called to testify in the trial of of 26 Americans [JURIST news archive] and several former Italian intelligence officials for the 2003 abduction and rendition [JURIST news archive] of Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr [JURIST news archive]. Defense lawyers ...

Ecuador election court clears former president to run for office

[JURIST] Ecuador's election court [official website, in Spanish] announced Wednesday that a two-year suspension from politics for former Ecuadorian President Lucio Gutierrez, [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] had formally come to an end Sunday, leaving him free to run for office again. Gutierrez was suspended from politics and barred from running in the country's 2006 elections because he ...

Australia weighing ICJ genocide incitement lawsuit against Iran president

[JURIST] Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd [official profile] told Australian news service Sky News Wednesday that his government is considering bringing a lawsuit against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad [official profile; BBC profile] in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) [court website; JURIST news archive] for alleged incitement of genocide. Rudd characterized [ABC Australia ...

Malaysia court rules ethnic Indian protesters legally detained

[JURIST] The Federal Court of Malaysia [official website] Wednesday rejected an appeal by five ethnic Indian protesters being detained by Malaysian authorities under a controversial security law. The five detainees, prominent members of the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) [advocacy website; JURIST news archive], had appealed a judgment [JURIST report] by a lower court which found that their ...

Former Enron executives scheduled for retrial

[JURIST] US District Court Judge Vanessa Gilmore [official website] ordered retrials for three former Enron Broadband Services [JURIST news archive] executives Monday. Scheduled to begin in November, the new series of trials follows a refusal by the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit [official website] to dismiss remaining charges against the three after a jury failed to reach a verdict on...

ICTY transfers Bosnian Croat war criminal to Italy prison

[JURIST] The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website; JURIST news archive] said Tuesday that it has transferred [press release] a former Bosnian Croat military commander who was convicted of war crimes related to the forced relocation and detention of Muslims during the 1991-95 Balkan Wars to an Italian prison to serve out his sentence. In 2003, the ICTY...

Pakistan court clears Bhutto widower of smuggling charges

[JURIST] A Pakistani court Tuesday cleared Pakistan People's Party [party website] leader Asif Ali Zardari [BBC profile] of charges that he smuggled antiquities out of the country following the ouster of his now-late wife former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto [BBC obituary] in 1997. AP has more. In March, a Pakistani court cleared Zardari of charges [JURIST report] related to his ...

Northern Kosovo courts in legal limbo after independence: judges group

[JURIST] Courts in Kosovo's northern districts have been left in legal limbo since the Assembly of Kosovo's February unilateral declaration of Kosovo's independence [text; JURIST report] from Serbia, the Steering Council of the Kosovo Judges' Association said Monday. The Council expressed concern that courts in the region were unable to guarantee the protection of peoples' legal rights, a ...

Federal judge dismisses lawsuit by Muslim woman asked to remove veil in court

[JURIST] A federal judge Monday dismissed a federal lawsuit [JURIST report] filed by a Muslim woman against a judge who asked her to remove her niqab [JURIST news archive] in court. Ginnnah Muhammad had alleged that Illinois small claims Judge Paul Paruk [31st District Court website] said he had to see her face to gauge her veracity and threatened to dismiss her case if she refused to remove her ...

Ex-officials condemn ineffectiveness of US anti-corruption effort in Iraq

[JURIST] Two former State Department [official website] officials lambasted the Bush administration for ineffectiveness in combating corruption in Iraq in a hearing Monday before the US Senate Democratic Policy Committee [official website]. Retired Associate Superior Court Judge Arthur Brennan, who was briefly Director of the Office of Accountability and Transparency (OAT) at the US Embassy in ...

Omagh bombing civil trial moves to Ireland for testimony

[JURIST] A British civil lawsuit [BBC report] against members of the Real IRA alleged to have been involved with the 1998 Omagh bombing [JURIST news archive] in Northern Ireland opened in a Dublin court Monday. The trial, which began [JURIST report] in the Belfast High Court in April, was moved to Dublin so that the High Court could hear evidence from law enforcement officials [Garde website] ...

Schwarzenegger nixes California mass prisoner release: report

[JURIST] California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger [official website] has abandoned a 2007 plan to release approximately 22,000 "lower risk" prisoners who have less than 20 months of their sentences remaining, according to a Tuesday report in the Sacramento Bee. The proposal was intended to cut a multi-billion dollar deficit and alleviate severe prison overcrowding [JURIST reports] in ...

Vietnam journalists arrested after reporting on corruption scandal

[JURIST] Two Vietnamese journalists, Nguyen Van Hai of Tuoi Tre news agency [media website, in Vietnamese] and Nguyen Viet Chien of Thanh Nien news agency [media website], were arrested Monday by Vietnamese authorities and charged with abuse of power in connection with their uncovering of the so-called PMU 18 corruption scandal [JURIST report; Tuoi Tre news archive, in Vietnamese]. Project ...

Colombia extradites ex-paramilitary leaders to face US drug charges

[JURIST] Colombia [JURIST news archive] Tuesday extradited 14 former militia leaders suspected of organizing violent massacres and drug smuggling operations to the United States to face drug trafficking charges. The guerrilla leaders had surrendered to Colombian authorities under a peace deal in which Colombian President Alvaro Uribe [official profile, in Spanish; BBC profile] suspended warrants ...

Russia Constitutional Court begins work in St. Petersburg

[JURIST] The Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation [official website, in Russian; RIN backgrounder] began work at its new location in St. Petersburg Monday. The move from the Court's former home in Moscow began in February and is expected to be completed by May 21, with the Court's first session in its new home to take place the following day. RIA Novosti has more. The legislation ...

Japan House of Representatives approves bill militarizing space program

[JURIST] The Japanese House of Representatives [official website, in Japanese], approved a bill Tuesday that would allow the country's space program to be used for defense purposes, including the development of spy satellites. A lower house committee approved the bill [JURIST report] late last week. The new bill is expected to be approved by the House of Councillors [official website, in Japanese...

Japan arrests 5 for fraud in China WWII chemical weapons removal

[JURIST] Japanese authorities on Tuesday arrested five officials of Pacific Consultants International [corporate website] and its affiliate, Abandoned Chemical Weapons Disposal Corp. (ACWDC), for allegedly defrauding the Japanese government of $1.1 million in connection with a government program to remove abandoned chemical weapons left in China by Japanese troops at the end of World War II. ACWD...

US military drops charges against so-called '20th hijacker'

[JURIST] The US Department of Defense [official website] has dropped criminal charges against Mohammad al-Qahtani, [JURIST news archive] a Saudi Arabian citizen being held at the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive]. Al-Qahtani was known as the "20th hijacker" for his alleged role in the Sept. 11 attacks [JURIST news archive]. According to US Army Lt. Col. Bryan Broyles, ...

Pentagon approves death penalty charges for 5 alleged 9/11 conspirators

[JURIST] Death penalty charges [JURIST report] against Guantanamo detainees Khalid Sheikh Mohammed [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] and four other men allegedly involved in planning the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States have been confirmed by the Convening Authority [DOD press release] for the US military commissions and sent to defense lawyers, the Miami Herald reported ...

Israel police raid Olmert offices in corruption investigation

[JURIST] Israeli police Monday raided the offices of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert [official website] as part of an investigation into allegations that Olmert accepted bribes from an American businessman during his tenures as mayor of Jerusalem and as Israeli Minister of Industry Trade and Labor. The businessman, Morris Talansky, was questioned Monday, but denied wrongdoing [Haaretz report] ...

Supreme Court takes death row habeas claim

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] granted limited certiorari Monday in Bell v. Kelly (07-1223) [docket; cert. petition, PDF], where it will consider whether the US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals erred when, in conflict with decisions of the Ninth and Tenth Circuits, it applied the deferential standard of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), reserved for claims "adjudicated on...