Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim entered a plea of not guilty on Wednesday at the start of his sodomy trial. Anwar's defense lawyers are hoping to postpone the trial until the resolution of his appeals of the High Court's refusal to dismiss the sodomy charge and the Federal Court's decision not to grant him access [...]
Prosecutor v. al-Bashir, International Criminal Court, Appeals Chamber, February 3, 2010 . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here. Latest commentary available here. JURIST has more on Omar al-Bashir.
The Swiss Federal Council announced Wednesday that it would accept two Uighur detainees from Guantanamo Bay . The council decided to admit the detainees for humanitarian reasons, despite the Chinese citizenship of both Uighurs and recent warnings by the Chinese Embassy in Switzerland that Switzerland would jeopardize relations with China by accepting the detainees. After [...]
The US House Judiciary Committee has approved a bill to give the Supreme Court jurisdiction to review appeals of court-martial decisions. The proposed legislation, known as the Equal Justice for Our Military Act of 2009 , would modify the high court's jurisdiction so that service members could petition for review if the US Court of [...]
The Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland announced Wednesday that $4.6 million seized from the bank accounts of former Haitian president Jean-Claude Duvalier must be returned to his family. The decision , made just hours before the January 12 Haitian earthquake , overturned the ruling of the Federal Criminal Court that the money should go to [...]
The Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) announced on Tuesday that the country will accept one detainee from the Guantanamo Bay prison. The MFA accepted the detainee as a show of support for US President Barack Obama in his attempt to close the facility. The name of the prisoner was not released for security purposes, [...]
The US and Russia have reached an agreement for the first nuclear weapons reduction treaty since 1991, official said Tuesday. The landmark treaty, which will replace the recently expired Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty , will include significant reductions in both the number of deployed nuclear weapons as well as the number of nuclear-delivery systems. US [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Tuesday vacated and remanded the 22-year prison sentence for so-called "millennium bomber" Ahmed Ressam , finding that the district court's failure to follow proper sentencing guidelines resulted in an inappropriately lenient sentence. Ressam, an al Qaeda-trained terrorist, was originally sentenced in 2005 after being convicted [...]
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Tuesday proposed a referendum to reform the nation's election system. Brown has proposed an alternative voting system in which voters would rank candidates in order of preference. He added that the change will not affect the forthcoming elections. Brown said: If the people decide to back the alternative vote, [...]
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced on Tuesday the creation of a panel to prepare the Department of Defense (DOD) for the repeal of the US military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy . In a hearing before the US Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) , Gates said that the group will review the potential [...]
