JAG CENTRAL

The New York Times: Soldiers to Take Lie Test in Colombia Deaths ("Soldiers who shot dead a Colombian family of five, including a 6-month-old baby, will take lie-detector tests to determine whether they really thought they were firing at rebels, the government said Thursday. The polygraph tests, unprecedented in a Colombian military investigation, follow a report released Tuesday showing that at least one of the five slain peasants was shot execution-style."), Legal Scholars Criticize Memos on Torture ("Legal scholars asked to assess the recently released Justice Department memorandums concerning torture all but unanimously agreed that the quality of the legal work in them is poor. It is unsurprising that law professors, who are generally liberal, should differ with the conclusions reached in the memos, which take a broad view of presidential power. But their attack on the professional quality of the memos was unusually sharp. Harold Hongju Koh, dean of the Yale Law School, called the memorandums "embarrassing" and "abominable." Martin Flaherty, an expert in international human rights law at Fordham University, said, "The scholarship is very clever and original but also extreme, one-sided and poorly supported by the legal authority relied on." Cass Sunstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago, said: "It's egregiously bad. It's very low level, it's very weak, embarrassingly weak, just short of reckless."), Testimony Ties Key Officer to Cover-Up ("The company commander of the unit charged with abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib testified Thursday that the top military intelligence officer at the prison was in the cellblock the night a prisoner died during interrogation. His testimony suggested the officer, Col. Thomas M. Pappas, was aware of efforts to conceal the death."), U.S. Seeks a Deal to Shield Americans From Iraq's Courts ("The Bush administration is negotiating an agreement with Iraqi leaders to continue shielding Americans from criminal prosecution by Iraqi courts, but without the the new government's formal adoption of the arrangement, administration officials said Thursday. The officials said the arrangement, which is expected to be agreed upon in the next few days, just before the United States officially cedes power to the Iraqis at the end of June, was intended to immunize Americans from prosecution without forcing Iraqi leaders to suffer any adverse political consequences."), Traditional Courts for Genocide Cases ("President Paul Kagame officially inaugurated a traditional court system that has been tested for three years to speed up prosecution of those who carried out the genocide of 1994. The so-called gacaca courts are faced with trying some of the 100,000 defendants charged in the massacre of an estimated 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu."), and No Court Martial in Mistaken Bombing (which I told you about here.

The Washington Post: Charges Against Pilot in Bombing Dismissed, MP Captain Tells of Efforts to Hide Details of Detainee's Death, Abuse of Ukrainians at Abu Ghraib Alleged ("Two Ukrainian merchant seamen, who ended up in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison after they were detained in August, were kept naked and hooded for hours during their 10-month imprisonment, a top human rights official said Thursday."), and London: Tribunals Unacceptable ("The U.S. plan to use a military tribunal to prosecute terrorism suspects imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is unacceptable because it would not provide a fair trial by international standards, Britain's attorney general said. "There are certain principles on which there can be no compromise," Peter Goldsmith said in copy of a speech he planned to make to the International Criminal Law Association on Friday. "Fair trial is one of those, which is the reason we in the UK have been unable to accept that the U.S. military tribunals proposed for those detained at Guantanamo Bay offer sufficient guarantees of a fair trial in accordance with international standards.").

USA Today: Charges Considered in Death of Iraqi General ("The Army is building a case against two of its officers and two enlisted personnel in the fatal interrogation of an Iraqi general who was suffocated last November while in custody in Iraq, an Army official said Thursday. The official, who has direct knowledge of investigations into prisoner abuses and deaths, said investigators have completed their preliminary work in the case but have not yet sent their report to the base commander. The commander decides whether to proceed with the case.").