The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) on Tuesday sentenced the former captain at the Butare military academy, Ecole des Sous-Officiers, to life imprisonment for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for violence perpetrated in Butare prefecture. After 54 trial days of evidence, testimonies of 84 witnesses and 130 decisions, the court rendered its [...]
Eastman Kodak filed a lawsuit on Monday alleging that Apple is illegally using its patented technology. The complaint alleges that Apple erroneously maintains ownership of technology developed when the two companies worked together in the early 1990s. Kodak is suing to prevent further use of the technology without permission, as it plans to sell the [...]
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay expressed concern on Tuesday about the safety of the civilians in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) . The armed conflict between the government and the M23 movement, which has been conducting a mutiny in North Kivu Province under the leadership of [...]
The UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions published a report , released Tuesday, asking the US to clarify its policy of targeted killing of terrorism suspects through raids and unmanned drone strikes. Christof Heyns noted that the US government has failed in the past to provide a comprehensive explanation of its drone-attack [...]
A special military court in Dhaka on Monday convicted 611 of the 621 accused in the 13th Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) Battalion for their participation in the February 2009 mutiny . Only 10 soldiers were acquitted while the remaining soldiers were sentenced to prison terms ranging from four months to seven years. Since the mutiny, which [...]
The Polish Institute of National Remembrance (INR) , the body charged with investigating Nazi and communist-era crimes, on Tuesday began its investigation into crimes committed against Jewish women in a small northeastern Polish town during World War II. It was alleged that in 1941, Jewish women from the ghetto in Szczuczyn were hired by farmers [...]
The American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday released a report alleging widespread abuses by the Puerto Rico Police Department (PRPD) . The report documents numerous instances excessive force, sometimes deadly, to suppress speech, subdue protesters, and target ethnic and racial minorities. It also alleges a culture of impunity among the police and a failure to [...]
The Constitutional Court of Germany on Tuesday ruled that the Bundestag , the national parliament, has the right to be heard on the European financial crisis. In the case initiated by the Green party , the court held that Chancellor Angela Merkel failed to notify the parliament early enough about plans for the European Stability [...]
The Cyprus government’s practice of detaining all illegal migrants seeking asylum in the island nation violates international law, Amnesty International (AI) reported Tuesday. AI claims that Cyprus systematically detains migrants without exploring alternative methods of dealing with the individuals, in violation of European Union law. The report also alleges that the detainees are held indefinitely [...]
The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Tuesday disqualified Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani from being a member of Parliament since his April contempt conviction . Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry also announced that Gilani ceased to be the country’s prime minister since the date of his conviction and claimed that the office of the [...]
