The Venezuelan Supreme Court Tuesday upheld a list blocking 272 political candidates from running for office because of suspected corruption. Critics had argued that the list was unconstitutional because many of those included had not been convicted of any crime. Some also alleged that the list focused on opponents of current Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez [...]
Iran has commuted the sentences of four people scheduled to be executed by stoning and has suspended the use of the punishment, local media reported Wednesday. Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi, the head of the country's judiciary, had originally placed a moratorium on the punishment in 2002, but nine people were given the sentence in July for [...]
Serbia's Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor indicted two war crimes suspects Tuesday in connection with the 1992 killing of 700 Muslim civilians in the town of Zvornik. Former Zvornik mayor Branko Grujic and former local defense chief Branko Popovic are accused of using their positions to detain and kill civilians. In 2005, prosecutors charged [...]
Sudan Justice Minister Abdel-Basit Sabdarat said Wednesday that he had named one primary prosecutor and three assistants to investigate and try war crimes suspects from the country's Darfur region . The International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Netherlands currently handles such proceedings, but if Sudanese domestic courts are created with appropriate human rights and accountability [...]
A military group staged a coup in Mauritania early Wednesday, detaining President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi and Prime Minister Yahya Ould Ahmed Waqef . The coup's apparent leader, Gen. Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, also backed a 2005 coup that removed then-President Maaoya Sid'Ahmed Taya . Aziz had previously supported Abdallahi, but the two split after [...]
Judge Royce Lamberth of the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Wednesday ordered the unsealing of hundreds of documents related to the FBI's probe into the 2001 anthrax attacks . Among other papers, the released documents include 14 search warrants issued against government scientist and biodefense researcher Bruce Ivins , who had [...]
Paul Graham : "In September 2006, the case against Mr. Zuma was struck from the court roll for technical reasons related to delays required by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). The NPA intimated that they would indeed be continuing with the case and the charges that Mr. Zuma faces are more extensive than the original [...]
The jury in the military commission trial of Salim Ahmed Hamdan found Hamdan guilty on Wednesday of providing material support for terrorism, marking the first verdict rendered by a military commission trial at Guantanamo Bay. The jury , made up of six military officers, was selected on July 21, and the trial lasted for two [...]
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) launched a new program Tuesday that allows certain illegal immigrants to coordinate their removal from the US with ICE without the risk of home raids, arrest or detention. The Scheduled Departure Program, a pilot program that will run through August 22 in five major cities , is designed for [...]
The state of Texas executed Mexican national Jose Ernesto Medellin late Tuesday evening after the US Supreme Court narrowly refused to stay his sentence . Medellin's appeal was based on a July order by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) , which had attempted to halt his execution and mandated a review to determine whether [...]
