A federal judge on Wednesday ruled that former Guantanamo Bay detainee Ahmed Ghailani does not have a right to be represented by his military defense lawyers in a civilian court. Military lawyers Colonel Jeffrey Colwell and Major Richard Reiter were reassigned by the Department of Defense despite their willingness to continue representing Ghailani and Judge [...]
The Cuban government of Raul Castro has continued to repress dissidents and violate fundamental civil liberties of Cubans, maintaining the mechanisms put in place by Fidel Castro , according to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report released on Wednesday. Specifically, HRW reported that 53 political dissidents imprisoned since 2003 under Fidel Castro remain imprisoned, as [...]
Al Rawi, et al. v. The Security Service, et al., British High Court, November 18, 2009 . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here. Latest commentary available here. JURIST has more on torture.
US Attorney General Eric Holder appeared Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee to answer questions regarding the decision to try five men accused of conspiring to commit the 9/11 terrorist attacks in federal court. In his opening remarks , Holder refuted the arguments made by his predecessor and other lawmakers that the decision to try [...]
The British High Court ruled Wednesday that the government may withhold evidence from seven claimants suing UK intelligence services MI5 and MI6 for their roles in alleged torture at Guantanamo Bay . The court ruled that the agencies can rely on the evidence in their defense without disclosing it to the claimants. The ruling marks [...]
The US Senate on Tuesday rejected an attempt to bar using federal funds to build or modify prisons in the US to hold detainees from Guantanamo Bay . By a mostly party-line 57-43 vote , the Senate defeated an amendment to the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act , proposed by Senator James Inhofe [...]
Iraqi Sunni Arab Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi on Wednesday announced his veto of the first article of the recently passed election law at a press conference in Baghdad. Hashemi said further amendments are necessary before the law will be acceptable, specifically calling for increased representation for Iraqis living abroad. An estimated 1.5 million Iraqis live [...]
Virginia authorities on Tuesday executed a prisoner by electric chair , conducting the country's first execution by electrocution in over a year. Former Army counterintelligence worker Larry Bill Elliott, who was convicted of a 2001 double murder, was executed Tuesday night after Virginia Governor Tim Kaine declined to intervene . The US Supreme Court had [...]
An Iranian court has sentenced five people to death for their roles in protests that took place after this summer's disputed elections , according to state media Tuesday. Another 81 people have been sentenced to prison for up to 15 years. The names of those sentenced to death are unknown, and all have been sentenced [...]
US President Barack Obama signed an executive order Tuesday creating a Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force to be headed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) as lead agency. The task force, which continues the work of and replaces the federal government's Corporate Fraud Task Force (CFTC) , is charged with building on "efforts already underway [...]
