[JURIST] Two lawyers pleaded guilty Thursday to participating in a massive insider trading scheme that US federal prosecutors have called the most extensive such fraud uncovered since the 1980s. Former Morgan Stanley [corporate website] lawyer Randi Collotta and her husband Christopher admitted to conspiracy and securities fraud [DOJ press release] in Manhattan federal court. The couple is among 13 defendants charged [press release, PDF; JURIST report] "with participating in two massive insider trading schemes and in two separate bribery schemes" that netted more than $8 million dollars in illegal profits for themselves and the hedge funds with which the defendants were affiliated. Also indicted is Mitchel Guttenberg, executive director and institutional client manager at UBS AG [corporate website], who sold two co-defendants material, nonpublic information regarding upcoming upgrades and downgrades in UBS analysts' securities recommendations. Besides the Collottas, four defendants have pleaded guilty to conspiracy, securities fraud, and commercial bribery charges.

Morgan Stanley agreed to pay a $10 million settlement [JURIST report] to the Securities and Exchange Commission [official website] last June without admitting or denying allegations made by the SEC that the corporation had failed to protect against potential misuse of insider trading information as required by law. Also Thursday, another former Morgan Stanley lawyer, Jennifer Wang, and her husband Ruben Chen were arrested for alleged insider trading [DOJ press release]. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] The European Court of Human Rights [official website] Thursday ruled [press release] that Russian authorities were responsible for the 2001 death of a Chechen man who died after he was taken into Russian custody during a raid. The court ordered Russia to pay €62,285 compensation [judgment text] to the family of Shamil Said-Khasanovich Akhmadov, whose battered body was discovered in a field after being detained by Russian forces. The case is not the only one brought against Russia by Chechens; the president of the court has said almost a fifth of the 90,000 complaints currently before the court name the Russian government as a defendant. Radio Free Europe has more.

In April the ECHR ordered Russia to compensate a Chechen woman [JURIST report] for the disappearance and alleged killing of her husband in 2000.

[JURIST] Charges [PDF charge sheet] against Yemeni Guantanamo Bay detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan [Trial Watch profile; JURIST news archive] have been formally referred to a military commission [JURIST news archive], according to a statement from the US Department of Defense Thursday. Hamdan is charged with conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism, and will be arraigned within 30 days.

Hamdan was a driver for Osama bin Laden before his capture and incarceration at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive]. In August 2005, he challenged [JURIST report] the legality of his pending trial before a military commission rather than in front of an ordinary US military court. In a case that went all the way up the US Supreme Court, Hamdan's lawyers argued [JURIST report] that the then-existing commission system set up by presidential order was unfair because it allowed President Bush's military subordinates to determine who will act as judge and jury and also decide which crimes would be prosecuted. The Bush administration argued that Hamdan was not entitled to Geneva Convention protections because he was not part of a uniformed enemy. The court ruled [JURIST report] in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld [PDF text] that the military commissions as then constituted were illegal under military law and the Geneva Conventions. After Congressional passage of the Military Commissions Act [JURIST news archive], Hamdan was recharged [JURIST report; charge sheet, PDF] in February. DOD has more.

[JURIST] Members of the US House Judiciary Committee [official website] questioned [hearing materials] Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Thursday about the US Attorney firing scandal [JURIST news archive], demanding to know whether White House officials ordered the firings of prosecutors for political reasons. Gonzales said his former chief of staff Kyle Sampson [DOJ press release] was mainly responsible for compiling the list of prosecutors to be dismissed, but acknowledged that presidential adviser Karl Rove [official profile] had earlier discussed voter fraud prosecutions [JURIST report] in three jurisdictions with Gonzales. The US Attorney in one of those jurisdictions was later fired, and allegations have surfaced that US Attorneys were evaluated on whether they pursued voter fraud cases that benefited Republican candidates.

A series of emails released by the Department of Justice in March revealed that Rove originally suggested firing all 93 US Attorneys [JURIST report] in January 2005, contradicting earlier assertions by the White House that the idea first came from former White House counsel Harriet Miers. The same month, the Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenaed [JURIST report] Rove, Miers, and Sampson, rejecting Bush's interview offer. The House Judiciary Committee later subpoenaed Rove, Miers, and several aides [JURIST report] to testify in a concurrent investigation. The Department of Justice is currently investigating [JURIST report] whether Gonzales' former White House liaison Monica Goodling considered political affiliation in hiring replacement US attorneys in violation of federal law. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Turkish parliament Thursday passed a constitutional amendment changing the process to select the country's president. From this point the president will be elected by popular vote rather than chosen by legislators. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) [party website, in Turkish; Wikipedia backgrounder] fought for the amendments after opposition lawmakers, fearing that the sole presidential candidate Abdullah Gul [official website] would try to implement more Islamic laws in Turkey's secularist state structure, refused to participate in the parliamentary selection process. The amendment also shortens the presidential term from seven to five years, allows presidents to serve multiple terms, and mandates that general elections be held every four years, instead of the current five-year requirement.

Gul ended his parliamentary candidacy earlier this week when opposition lawmakers refused to participate in a second parliamentary vote [JURIST report]. The first round of presidential balloting [JURIST report], held late last month, was annulled [JURIST report] by the country's Constitutional Court because a two-thirds quorum of legislators did not participate in the vote as required by the constitution. Gul has not said if he might run in a general presidential election. AP has more.

[JURIST] Drug maker Purdue Pharma LP [corporate website] pleaded guilty Thursday and agreed to pay $634.5 million [plea agreement, PDF] in fines for misleading the public about the addiction risk of a painkiller it produced. According to prosecutors, Purdue knew in 1995 that doctors were worried that the drug OxyContin [FDA materials] was addictive, but hid that information from its sales representatives. In a statement [PDF text], the company admitted that some employees had made inaccurate statements about OxyContin to physicians.

Earlier this week, Purdue agreed to pay $19.5 million [AP report] to 26 states and the District of Columbia to settle charges that it pushed doctors to overprescribe OxyContin. AP has more.

[JURIST] Churches across the US have agreed to become part of the New Sanctuary Movement [advocacy website], a program to protect illegal immigrants from arrest and deportation and place pressure on the government to make becoming a citizen an easier process. Thus far, churches in five large US cities have plans to protect illegal immigrants, with the possibility of housing them on church grounds, and on Wednesday San Pablo's Lutheran Church in North Hollywood and Our Lady Queen of Angels [church website] Catholic Church in Los Angeles offered their buildings as shelter to one person each. The New Sanctuary Movement states in its pledge that:

We stand together in our faith that everyone, regardless of national origin, has basic common rights, including but not limited to: 1) livelihood; 2) family unity; and 3) physical and emotional safety. We witness the violation of these rights under current immigration policy, particularly in the separation of children from their parents due to unjust deportations, and in the exploitation of immigrant workers.

[JURIST] Member nations to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) [text] marked the 10th anniversary of the accord [OPCW materials] at an unveiling of a memorial dedicated to chemical warfare victims at the headquarters of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) [official website] in the Netherlands on Wednesday. Member states pledged to refocus attempts to persuade North Korea and Middle Eastern nations to join the treaty, as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a video message [transcript]

With it, we remember the unspeakable horror endured by victims of chemical weapons. And we vow that their pain will never be forgotten by present and future generations...As we do, we pledge to redouble our efforts to achieve universal membership of the Chemical Weapons Convention, and to free the world from chemical weapons. I call on those States that have not yet ratified or acceded to the Convention to do so without delay.

[JURIST] The High Court of Ireland [official backgrounder] ruled Wednesday that the Irish constitution [PDF text] does not prevent a minor girl in state care from traveling to the UK to have an abortion. Lawyers appointed by Attorney General Rory Brady [official website] argued that the constitution precluded state employees from assisting the girl, but Justice Liam McKechnie held that this was not at issue in the case. McKechnie also held that the argument presented by the Irish Health Service Executive [official website] that the girl needed to obtain court permission to travel was invalid.

The minor began to seek to have an abortion after an April screening under the care of the Health Service Executive revealed a brain defect in the fetus that would cause it to die quickly after birth. In November, the High Court held that the protection of an unborn's right to life under Article 40 of the Irish constitution does not include the preservation of embryos frozen [JURIST report] as a part of infertility treatment. AP has more.

[JURIST] Pakistani police have registered a case [GeoTV report] against unidentified persons for firing at the house of Munir A. Malik, lawyer for suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry [official website; JURIST news archive] and president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, early Thursday morning. Malik told GeoTV that the gunmen shot out windows and narrowly missed his daughter when they shot into a room in which she and his son were present. Local government officials have asked Chaudhry to delay an upcoming meeting with lawyers for fear of further attacks by terrorist organizations, as they have already arrested at least 12 suspected of planning a raid on the meeting.

Chaudhry was technically made "non-functional" [JURIST report] by a March 9 order of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. No specifics were provided at the time of his suspension but documents subsequently disclosed [JURIST report] suggest he was officially removed on suspicion of misusing his influence to get his son jobs and promotions. Lawyers and opposition leaders critical of the move consider the suspension an assault on the independence of the country's judiciary and an indirect bid by Musharraf to continue his eight-year rule in an election year. Pakistan's Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) began an inquiry into Chaudhry's alleged misconduct, but the investigation was suspended [JURIST report] Monday after Chaudhry appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the SJC lacked competence to try him. The Supreme Court Tuesday created a special panel of judges [JURIST report] to hear the challenge. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] A federal judge in Massachusetts has dismissed [order, PDF] a lawsuit [ACLU materials] brought by illegal immigrant detainees over their transfer from Massachusetts to Texas holding centers following a March 6 factory raid in which 360 people were arrested. Lawyers for the detainees argued that the government moved them to Texas to deny the detainees legal aid, but the government countered that the reason for the move was that there was simply not enough space in Massachusetts to hold them. US District Judge Richard Stearns held Monday that his court did not have jurisdiction to hear the claims, but ordered the government not to deport the detainees until their claims can be filed in a court that possesses proper jurisdiction.

The US Department of Homeland Security [official website] detained more than 300 people for possible deportation as illegal immigrants after a March 6 raid at Michael Bianco Inc. [corporate website], a leather factory that makes equipment for the US military. Following the raid, Stearns ordered US immigration officials [JURIST report] to provide detainees access to lawyers and not to move them out of state. AP has more.

[JURIST] Former US Attorney Todd P. Graves [firm profile] was forced to resign from his post with the Western District of Missouri last year after he expressed a difference of opinion with the Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] on politically sensitive cases, Graves told the New York Times Wednesday. Graves said that while he was planning to go into private practice, he did not know that his name appeared on a list of US Attorneys that the DOJ was contemplating firing. Director of the Executive Office for US Attorneys Michael Battle [official profile], the same man who informed the other eight US Attorney's fired [JURIST news archive] last year of their dismissal, suggested to Graves in early 2006 that he was also going to be fired.

Graves is now the ninth known US Attorney to be fired last year for alleged political reasons. On Monday, the US Senate Judiciary Committee [official website] sent a letter to former US Attorney Bradley Schlozman to answer questions about a possible link between the firing scandal and voter fraud prosecutions [JURIST report]. Also Monday, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) said that it would not try to block [JURIST report] a House decision to grant immunity to former DOJ official Monica Goodling [JURIST news archive] in exchange for her testimony about whether politics played a role in the dismissal of eight US Attorneys. Goodling told the committee in March that she would not speak to the committee about her role in the firings [JURIST report]. The New York Times has more.

[JURIST] Syria [JURIST news archive] will take no part in the establishment of a UN tribunal to try suspects in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri [JURIST news archive] if the tribunal acts to undermine the country's sovereignty, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told members of the New People's Assembly [SANA report] Thursday. Assad has continually denied any allegations that Syria participated in the assassination [JURIST report]. He told parliament that "We have nothing directly to do with the court. Any cooperation requested from Syria that compromises national sovereignty is totally rejected." Reuters has more.

On Monday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Al Arabiya television that the US may attempt to force the establishment of a UN tribunal [JURIST report] under Chapter VII of the UN Charter [text] to try suspects in the assassination. Last week, UN Undersecretary-General for Legal Affairs Nicolas Michel [official profile] reported that he has been unable to break a deadlock [JURIST report] within the Lebanese government preventing approval of the international tribunal. Michel traveled to Lebanon [JURIST report] last month in an effort to revitalize the ratification process of an agreement [JURIST report] to establish the tribunal.

The agreement has been approved by the Lebanese cabinet, but Lebanon's pro-Syrian parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri has refused to convene parliament, preventing the ratification of the agreement. Michel said that he saw "no progress," despite the fact that both the government and opposition have expressed support, in principle, for the tribunal. Thus far, Michel has not confirmed any plans for the UN to establish a tribunal under Chapter VII.