A criminal court sitting in Damascus Wednesday sentenced twelve dissidents accused of inciting sectarian strife to two and a half years in prison, according to the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria . The convicted were all leaders of the pro-democracy Damascus Declaration for Democratic National Change (DDDNC) group. They were found guilty on [...]
An Australian state court Wednesday sentenced suspected terrorist Joseph "Jack" Thomas to nine months in prison for possessing a falsified passport. Justice Elizabeth Curtain of the Supreme Court of Victoria released Thomas in consideration for his time served in prison, the prolonged delay in his prosecution, and his lack of prior convictions. Thomas, known in [...]
The Russian State Duma , the country's lower house of parliament, on Wednesday unanimously approved military defense agreements signed with Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia last month. The so-called Treaties on Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance allow Russia to offer military assistance and provide for the 3,800 Russian troops to be deployed [...]
JURIST has launched an official page on Facebook, the rapidly-growing social networking portal. The page is designed to give our US and worldwide audience a space in which to share their JURIST experiences and their common interest in the legal news and commentary that we offer every day, while giving readers occasional behind-the-scenes peeks at [...]
US military judge Col. Ralph Kohlmann ruled Monday that defense attorney Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier could gain access to Camp 7 , a special camp for alleged al Qaeda members classified as "high-value detainees" at the Guantanamo Bay military prison. Lachelier is the defense lawyer for Ramzi Binalshibh, who has been charged with murder and war [...]
A three-judge panel of the Iraqi Central Criminal Court on Tuesday sentenced to death an Iraqi citizen affiliated with a Sunni militant organization for the 2006 abduction, torture, and killing of two US soldiers and the killing of a third US soldier. The trial and conviction are the first in which an Iraqi citizen has [...]
Judge Iain Bonomy of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Tuesday warned former Bosnian Serb leader and war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic not to cause any delays in his trial and gave him 14 days to respond to a motion to amend the indictment against him. Karadzic is representing himself and [...]
Donald G. Rehkopf, Jr.:"For those unfamiliar with military practice under the Uniform Code of Military Justice,reading the recent federal District Court decision in Watada v. Head, is probably as baffling as any of the great "Sherlock Holmes" mysteries. But, like any of the Holmes' stories, in the end it all becomes quite "elementary." LT Ehren [...]
Internet search company Google, Inc. agreed Tuesday to settle two copyright infringement lawsuits stemming from its book-scanning initiative . The two lawsuits were brought against Google by The Authors Guild , an advocacy group seeking to preserve copyright protection for authors, and by other plaintiffs including the Association of American Publishers (AAP) , The McGraw-Hill [...]
A US military judge ruled Tuesday that a confession given by Guantanamo Bay detainee Mohammed Jawad to Afghan officials following his capture in 2002 was obtained using torture and is therefore inadmissible at his upcoming military commission trial. Army Col. Stephen Henley found that Afghan officials threatened to kill Jawad and his family unless he [...]
