US Department of Defense prosecutors announced Monday they had filed charges related to the 2000 al Qaeda attack on the USS Cole against Guantanamo Bay detainee Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri . Al-Nashiri, a Saudi national, is charged with terrorism, attempted murder, and providing material support to terrorism, among other offenses. The charges fall under the Military [...]
The United States should set a concrete deadline for closure of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay , according to a Monday report by an investigator from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly (OSCEPA) . OSCEPA's special Guantanamo envoy Anne-Marie Lizin said that the major problems blocking closure include questions over [...]
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Monday moved forward with plans for a national referendum on the country's 2006 presidential election. Last week, the Colombian High Court ruled that a legal inquiry should be held into the election after it found that a legislator had been bribed to help push constitutional amendments allowing Uribe to seek a [...]
The Pakistani constitution must be amended in order to reinstate the judges who were ousted last year by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf , Pakistani Law and Justice Minister Farooq H. Naik said Sunday. He said that while the constitution provides for the appointment of judges, it does not speak to the reinstatement of ousted judges. [...]
Unknown bombers made unsuccessful assassination attempts on the lives of five Iraqi appeals court judges Monday. The five judges – Ali al-Alaq, Suleiman Abdullah, Ghanim Janab, Alaa al-Timimi, and Hassan Fouad – are all members of the al-Rasafa Court of Appeal in eastern Baghdad. While all five were unharmed in the separate attacks, the wife of [...]
A German man's right to a fair trial was not violated by police torture threats, the European Court of Human Rights ruled Monday. In 2003, Magnus Gaefgen was convicted of kidnapping and killing a six-year-old child after German police threatened Gaefgen with torture to get him to reveal the location of the body. Gaefgen argued [...]
Thana Tansiri, a lawyer for former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra , began serving a six-month prison sentence Monday for his role in an attempt to bribe officials overseeing a corruption case against Thaksin. Thana is one of three lawyers sentenced last week for delivering a paper bag containing $60,000 to a court official. The [...]
Iran's Revolutionary Court sentenced an Iranian electronics salesman to death Monday after convicting him of espionage, according to a state media report . Ali Ashtari, who was arrested last year, was charged with using his sales connections in the military to pass information on Iran's Atomic Energy Organization to Israeli intelligence agents. Israeli officials denied [...]
Maureen Aung-Thwin : "The UNHRC is wise to keep up public pressure on the Burmese military regime for its continued abuse of human rights. The generals probably thought they could take a breather when the outgoing Special Rapporteur Paulo Sergio Pinheiro completed his mandate as rights envoy last month. Pinheiro's hard-hitting final report to the [...]
The Dutch Public Prosecution Service (OM) will not prosecute politician Geert Wilders for his video and printed statements against the Quran and Islam because the statements are not punishable under anti-discrimination laws . Wilders, who is an official with the right-wing People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) , released written statements in 2006 and [...]
