Chief of the UK Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) John Scarlett said that the British secret service did not participate in or condone torture, during a BBC radio interview broadcast Monday. Scarlett denied that the SIS, better known as MI6, was involved in torture, saying there has been "no torture and there is no complicity with [...]
A Pakistani court on Monday directed police to open an investigation into allegations that former president Pervez Musharraf illegally detained 60 members of the judiciary after declaring emergency rule in November 2007. The order was issued by Islamabad District and Sessions Judge Akmal Raza in response to a complaint filed by lawyer Aslam Ghuman. Ghuman [...]
Saudi Arabia is illegally detaining thousands under the auspices of combating terrorism, according to a report published Monday by Human Rights Watch (HRW) . HRW reports that since 2003, thousands of terrorism suspects have been detained indefinitely, in violation of Saudi law, which limits pre-trial detentions to six months. The report also charges that the [...]
US Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to name a special prosecutor who will be tasked with investigating the alleged abuse of detainees and other terrorism suspects by CIA interrogators, according to a Sunday Los Angeles Times report. The report cites a senior Department of Justice (DOJ) official who says that Holder will limit the [...]
Iran's Prosecutor General Ghorban Ali Dorri Najafabadi acknowledged Saturday that some protesters arrested in the aftermath of the disputed presidential election were tortured. He went on to say that the protesters should not have been taken to the Kahrizak detention center, where several protesters died while incarcerated. Following the disclosure of the use of torture, [...]
The Obama administration on Friday petitioned the US Supreme Court to overturn a district court order mandating disclosure of detainee abuse photos , alleging that this could lead to further violence in Iraq and Afghanistan that would endanger US civil and military personnel. According to the government, Exemption 7(F) of the Freedom of Information Act [...]
A three-judge panel for the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on Friday upheld the death sentence handed down to DC-area sniper John Allen Muhammad . In his appeal, Muhammad alleged "nondisclosure of exculpatory information by the prosecution, ineffective assistance of his trial counsel, improper exclusion of expert testimony during his sentencing phase, [...]
Sonia Sotomayor was sworn in as the 111th justice in the history of the US Supreme Court Saturday. Chief Justice John Roberts administered the oath, in which Sotomayor swore to "administer justice without respect to persons and do equal right to the poor and to the rich" and to "faithfully and impartially discharge and perform [...]
A Yemeni cleric and his assistant pleaded guilty Friday to conspiring to provide financial support for Hamas and were sentenced to time served by the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York . After the plea deal, Sheikh Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad and assistant Mohammed Zayed will be released and returned to [...]
The Moscow Military District Court on Friday rejected a petition by prosecutors to allow further investigation into the 2006 shooting death of journalist Anna Politkovskaya . The retrial of three men acquitted of involvement in her death began earlier this week with the prosecution asking that the case against Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, Dzhabrail Makhmudov, and Ibragim [...]
