Abu Omar trial continues despite Constitutional Court ruling

After the Constitutional Court ruled that some evidence could not be used in the Abu Omar trial due to reasons of state secrecy, the defence lawyers asked to acquit immediately all the Italian and American defendants, or at least annul the indictments. Judge Oscar Magi rejected on the 20th of May all the lawyers requests and said the trial of 26 Americans and five Italians charged as responsible of the kidnapping of Abu Omar will continue.Judge Oscar Magi adjourned the proceedings until May 27 when the defendants will be interrogated..

Court ruling (in Italian) here.

The LA Times has a background story on the role of Robert Lady and Col. Stefano D’Ambrosio in the rendition.

Joint Committee on Human Rights hearing on abuse of terrorism powers, arrests, stop and searches in UK

Deals with policing and protest in the context of section 44 of the UK Terrorism act during the G20 protests (stopping journalists to take pictures, unnecessary arrests),  etc.

Q62 Lord Dubs:  In our previous report this Committee recommended that counter-terrorism powers should not be used against peaceful protesters. A number of witnesses have claimed that the police are abusing counter-terrorism powers to supplement stop and search powers and to stop journalists taking photographs. Would you like to comment on that?

Mr Hardwick (Independent Police Complaints Commission): I agree with what the Committee is saying. We require the police to refer to us any complaint that relates to their use of terrorism powers (and I personally review those), and the misuse of section 44 is a common theme in that. The problem with section 44 is the officer does not have to give an explanation about why he is stopping an individual, so I think it allows for lazy policing, frankly. I think that is one of the problems with it. So it would not surprise me if that was used inappropriately in protest situations, because we have certainly got evidence it has been used inappropriately in other situations, and that is a matter of concern for us

Scholarship: Review of the European Data Protection Directive + UK study on data retention

* RAND Europe just released this 100 p. study prepared for the Information Commissioner’s Office to review the strengths and weaknesses of the European Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC and propose avenues for improvement. The RAND study concludes that, in an increasingly global, networked environment, the Directive will not suffice in the long term.

Read it here. Summary here.

* Evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights concerning the provisions of the Policing and Crime Bill that relate to the use and retention of DNA and CCTV/APNR images by Dr Chris Pounder. Read it here.