A British soldier has told London's Daily Mirror newspaper about abuse of Iraqi prisoners by other UK soldiers and has reported the incidents to the Royal Military Police, according to a late story on Reuters. The eyewitness testimony follows publication earlier this week in the Mirror of pictures purporting to show British soldiers abusing Iraqi detainees. Although the authenticity of the photos was initially questioned, the UK Ministry of Defense has already launched a probe into the abuse claims, as previously reported on JURIST's Paper Chase. Friday's edition of the Mirror is not yet online at the time of this posting, but should soon be available here.

The FBI has detained an Oregon lawyer in connection with a Spanish police investigation into the March 11 train bombings in Madrid that killed some 200 people and injured almost 2000. Attorney Brandon Mayfield of Portland is being held on a material witness warrant issued pursuant to alleged fingerprint evidence provided to the FBI by Spanish authorities who currently consider the bombings to be the work of Tunisian and Moroccan extremists associated with Al Qaeda. Mayfield, a convert to Islam, was the lawyer for Jeffrey Battle, one of the so-called "Portland 7" who last year pled guilty to plotting to fight for the Taliban against the US in Afghanistan. KGW-TV in Portland has more.

At a press conference with visiting King Abdullah of Jordan, President Bush has said he is "sorry" for American humiliation of Iraqi prisoners and has vowed to punish those responsible. He nonetheless said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld would "stay in my Cabinet" despite Democratic calls for his resignation over the revelations.

UPDATE: AP now has a story online here.

AP is reporting that a Florida state judge has ruled unconstitutional a law used by Governor Jeb Bush to keep Terri Schiavo, a severely brain damaged woman, alive by ordering that her feeding tube be reconnected against her wishes as understood by her husband.

UPDATE: AP now has a full story here. Florida's St. Petersburg Times offers a backgrounder on the passage of "Terri's Law", a copy of which is available here [PDF].

In the wake of a failed plea agreement [PDF], Lea Fastow, wife of ex-Enron CFO Andrew Fastow, pled guilty Thursday to a tax misdemeanor charge (filing a false tax return) and was sentenced by US District Judge David Hittner to the maximum of a year in prison and a year of supervision afterwards, well over the prosecution's recommendation of five months incarceration and five months supervision. The original indictment against Lea Fastow is here [PDF]. The Houston Chronicle has more.

AP is reporting that Paul Shanley, the Catholic priest at the center of the Boston Archdiocese's clergy sex abuse scandal, has been defrocked. Despite Church officials' knowledge of numerous sex abuse allegations against Shanley he was eventually transferred from Massachusetts to a California parish with a recommendation authorized by Cardinal Bernard Law, a recommendation that eventually forced Law to step down as Archbishop of Boston.

UPDATE: According to an AP story now online, Shanley was informed of his defrocking on May 3 by current Boston Archbishop Sean O'Malley following a decision by Pope John Paul II on February 19. He has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges of raping four males in Newton, Massachusetts in the 1980s and is awaiting trial; the Church has already settled a civil suit brought against it by four families complaining of Shanley's conduct.

A co-ordinator for Christian Peacemaker Teams, a human rights group supported by North American churches that has been active in Iraq since 2002 and which conducted interviews with dozens Iraqi detainees and/or their families and support networks between May 31 and December 20, 2003 is quoted in a Reuters report from Baghdad Thursday as saying that the images of US abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison indicate a far larger problem of mistreatment of Iraqi detainees:

Iraqis feel that they have been treated as sub-human by the Americans pretty much since the beginning...If that is what is finally coming to light, then what we're seeing now is probably just the tip of the iceberg.

Stewart Vriesinga said his group had taken statements from Iraqis describing abuse in detention, sexual humiliation at US checkpoints, and even deaths. Read CPT's January 2004 Report and Recommendations on Iraqi Detainees, and see CPT's collection of human rights testimonies recorded by CPT staff in Iraq. Similar testimonials have been gathered by other Western rights groups, such as Occupation Watch and Amnesty International. A February 2004 article in LAWeekly has more.

A Libyan court Thursday sentenced five Bulgarian medics and a Palestinian doctor to death by firing squad for having deliberating infected 400 children with the AIDS-causing virus HIV. The sentences come at the end of a bizarre on-and-off five year trial that was the focus of considerable attention in Bulgaria and elsewhere and was seen in some quarters as part of an effort by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to find scapegoats for a national tragedy. Bulgarian leaders say they are shocked by the outcome of the trial, and European Union representatives have expressed extreme concern over the sentences. The Libyan court said that it would release its reasoning for the sentences within a month; attorneys for the defendants said they would appeal. BBC News has more. From Sofia, the Bulgarian News Network has local coverage in English.

UPDATE: At a US State Department briefing Thursday afternoon, spokesman Richard Boucher called the Libyan verdict "unacceptable" to the US:

...the United States will continue to follow this matter closely and do everything we can to bring pressure on the Libyan government to resolve this matter so these people are released [and] return home.

Reuters has more.

A spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross has said that the organization knew of the situation at the Abu Ghraib prison where photographs of US soldiers abusing detainees were taken. Having been granted what it understood as unimpeded access to the facility and its inmates, the organization "repeatedly requested the US authorities to take corrective action." An ICRC statement released on their website notes:

Along with other legal norms, international humanitarian law prohibits torture and mistreatment at any time, irrespective of the status of the person detained. Reports of such acts must be properly investigated and perpetrators brought to justice. Detaining authorities are also duty bound to take all necessary measures to prevent any such abuses happening or recurring.

Read the full ICRC statement here. Reuters has more. Meanwhile more photos of prisoner abuse surfaced Thursday, published by the Washington Post.

JURIST's Paper Chase continues with limited service today while our law student staff is off for final exams. Full service will resume the week of May 17.

On May 6, 1882, President Chester A. Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act, barring Chinese laborers from entering the United States and prohibiting courts from bestowing US citizenship on Chinese. Connecticut Senator Joseph Hawley spoke out against the Act in these words:

Let the proposed statue be read 100 years hence, dug out of the dust of ages and forgotten as it will be except for a line of sneer by some historian, and ask the young man not well read in the history of this country what was the reason for excluding these men and he would not be able to find it in the law.

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and its successors were abolished in 1943 at the insistence of President Franklin Roosevelt.