Bill Quigley : “The Department of Justice decision to refuse to prosecute anyone for the intentional destruction of evidence of over 90 tapes documenting crimes of torture is an outrageous betrayal of respect for human rights and the rule of law. The DOJ continues to try to construct a cocoon of impunity for all the [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Wednesday dismissed a claim by the Christian Legal Society (CLS) in which the student group argued that the University of California-Hastings School of Law selectively applies its nondiscrimination policy to CLS. The court dismissed CLS’s claim on the grounds that CLS had not raised the [...]
A British intelligence officer accused of torturing a Guantanamo Bay detainee will not be charged due to a lack of evidence, the country’s public prosecutor announced on Wednesday. The MI5 officer was allegedly complicit in the abuse of Binyam Mohamed , causing him to falsely admit to terrorism charges. The US dropped all charges against [...]
Government officials in Madagascar spoke Thursday with military officers who attempted a coup on Wednesday during the country’s constitutional referendum. General Noel Rakotonandrasana allegedly led a group of about 20 soldiers into the capital city and tried to take control of government institutions and seize power from President Andry Rajoelina on the same day that [...]
France’s Court of Cassation, the country’s highest court of appeals, on Tuesday ordered the nation’s Constitutional Council to rule on whether the country’s ban on same-sex marriage conflicts with the constitution . The order comes after a gay French couple challenged the ban in a Reims court, saying it limited their personal freedoms . Rights [...]
The first civilian trial of an ex-Guantanamo detainee ended on Wednesday with the jury convicting Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani on only one of 285 counts of conspiracy, murder and attempted murder for his involvement in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. The jury in the US District Court for the Southern District [...]
Egyptian blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil was released on Monday following four years of imprisonment on charges of insulting Islam and causing sectarian strife on his blog . Nabil, a former law student, was convicted in 2007 for posting statements critical of Islamic authorities and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak , calling him a dictator. Nabil also [...]
International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said Wednesday that the court will not use testimony from three Kenyan witnesses who claim they were bribed to provide false evidence against a high-ranking government official. Ocampo also said that the ICC is looking into additional claims of witness intimidation and bribery. While Ocampo did not [...]
Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi filed a petition with Myanmar’s High Court on Tuesday seeking to reinstate her opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD) . Myanmar’s military government formally abolished the NLD in May for failing to register for elections, which took place earlier this month. Suu Kyi had filed an appeal [...]
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said in an interview Wednesday that he will not sign the execution order for former foreign minister Tariq Aziz . Aziz, who served in the government of Saddam Hussein as both the foreign minister and deputy prime minister, was sentenced to death last month by the Iraqi High Criminal Court. The [...]
