Afghan officials on Saturday signed a memorandum of understanding to delineate the process through which Afghanistan will take over the US military's Parwan Detention Center that was formerly housed at Bagram Air Base . The transfer of responsibilities may take place within six months , and will initially rely on the Afghan Ministry of Defense [...]
A naturalized American citizen pleaded not guilty on Saturday in federal court in New York City to charges of conspiring to commit murder in a foreign country and of receiving military training from al Qaeda. Adis Mendunjanin was indicted in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York on Saturday morning, and [...]
A three judge panel from the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on Friday upheld the constitutionality of provisions of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act , which allow a person deemed "sexually dangerous" to be civilly committed after the expiration of a federal criminal sentence. Two members of the panel [...]
The Chinese Embassy in Switzerland on Friday warned that Switzerland would jeopardize relations with China by accepting two Uighur Guantanamo Bay detainees . Switzerland has already agreed to accept an Uzbek Guantanamo detainee, who will be relocated to the canton of Geneva, but authorities from the canton of Jura made a public statement last month [...]
A plea of not guilty was entered in a US federal court Friday for Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, indicted on six counts for allegedly attempting to set off an explosive device on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 bound from Amsterdam to Detroit last month. Abdulmutallab is charged with attempted use of a weapon of mass [...]
The Federal Administrative Court of Switzerland ruled Friday that the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) violated the law in February 2009 when it ordered UBS to disclose information to the US on more than 250 of the bank's clients. FINMA issued the order after the US Department of Justice (DOJ) accused UBS of assisting [...]
The Portuguese Parliament on Friday approved a bill to legalize same-sex marriage . The bill gives same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual married couples, but stops short of allowing same-sex couples to adopt. The bill was supported by the ruling Socialist Part and other leftist parties and faced strong oppositions from conservatives as well [...]
The US Supreme Court on Friday granted certiorari in Dolan v. United States , in which the Court will consider whether a district court may enter a restitution order beyond the time limit prescribed in 18 USC § 3664(d)(5) . The petitioner, Brian Dolan, attacked a hitchhiker and was ordered to pay restitution to his [...]
UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial killings Philip Alston on Thursday urged an investigation into possible Sri Lankan war crimes after authenticating a video of members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) being executed by members of the Sri Lankan military. Alston said that an investigation by experts in forensic pathology, forensic video analysis, [...]
US President Barack Obama on Thursday called for stricter airline security measures as he announced the conclusion of two security reviews he ordered after the failed attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to detonate an explosive device on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 last month. According to an unclassified summary , the reviews found that the US [...]
