The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Friday affirmed a district court ruling that tobacco manufacturers conducted a scheme to deceive American consumers as to the health effects of their products through a pattern of mail and wire fraud. The US brought the initial action under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt [...]
Rwandan Hutu Desire Munyaneza was convicted by the Superior Court of Quebec Friday on seven counts of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes under Canada's new Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act . Munyaneza is the first person to have been charged under the act, which Canada ratified in 2000 in order to [...]
The South Korean Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a lower court ruling allowing a brain-damaged patient the right to die . The patient, a 76-year old woman on life-support at a Yonsei University medical center , is brain-dead and unable to survive without the use of a respirator. Chief Justice Lee Yong-hoon reasoned that, since [...]
Former US soldier Steven Green was sentenced Thursday to life in prison for the rape and murder of an Iraqi teenage girl and the murder of her family in Mahmudiya. A federal jury in the US District Court for the Western District of Kentucky , which convicted Green earlier this month, was instructed to decide [...]
Spanish National Court Judge Santiago Pedraz Gomez reinstated charges Thursday against three US soldiers for their involvement in the death of Spanish cameraman Jose Couso , which occurred when the soldiers opened fire on a Baghdad hotel frequented by Western journalists in 2003, allegedly without provocation. The homicide charges initially filed against Sgt. Shawn Gibson, [...]
The Bolivian Senate announced Thursday that an impeachment trial for Chief Justice Dr. Eddy Walter Fernandez Gutierrez of the Bolivian Supreme Court will be held on June 3. The Chamber of Deputies , Bolivia's lower congressional house, impeached Fernandez and suspended his title earlier this month after convicting him on the charge of "retardation of [...]
Former US vice president Dick Cheney on Thursday defended national security policies of the Bush administration. Speaking at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) , Cheney criticized many of the security policies of President Barack Obama and described how the 9/11 terrorist attacks affected subsequent decisions to defend the country. Maintaining that accurate intelligence is necessary [...]
Reed Brody : "Spain has become the latest battleground in the fight over the soul of international justice. On Tuesday, its lower house of Parliament called for a limit on its universal jurisdiction law over international crimes, irrespective of where they are committed, to cases in which there are Spanish victims or the alleged perpetrator [...]
A French Internet piracy law has been challenged on constitutional grounds by the opposition Socialist party in front of the Constitutional Council . The bill, introduced by cultural minister Christine Albanel and supported by President Nicholas Sarkozy , is aimed at reducing illegal downloads of protected works and was approved by the French Senate earlier [...]
Former Taiwanese president Chen Shui-bian dismissed his defense lawyers Thursday and announced he would not call any witnesses in protest of what he sees as a politically motivated prosecution . Chen, who was indicted in December, faces possible life in prison on charges of embezzlement, receiving bribes, forgery, and money laundering. Chen and his former [...]
