The US Supreme Court ruled Monday in Gonzalez v. United States that allowing a magistrate judge to oversee jury selection does not deprive a criminal defendant of the right to a jury trial and complies with the Federal Magistrates Act . The holding affirmed a judgment of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth [...]
Persons suspected of involvement in the 2005 Andijan uprising that resulted in a massacre of unarmed civilians are still being mistreated according to a new Human Rights Watch report released Monday. Uzbek President Islam Karimov has been criticized for his treatment of anti-government elements since the 2005 crackdown. The physical abuse and social stigma extend [...]
A court-martial was ordered Sunday for Alaa "Alex" Mohammad Ali, a dual Iraqi-Canadian citizen working as a translator in Iraq. Accused of having committed aggravated assault in February in connection with the stabbing death of another contractor, he is the first civilian charged by the military since a 2006 amendment to the Uniform Code of [...]
Talks between Pakistani party leaders meeting in London to discuss a parliamentary resolution to restore superior court judges ousted by President Pervez Musharraf under his proclamation of emergency last November collapsed Sunday despite last-minute intervention by a US envoy . US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Richard Boucher met separately with Pakistan People's [...]
Blackwater Worldwide is not likely to face criminal charges in connection with a September 16 shooting in Baghdad in which 14 Iraqi civilians were killed, AP reported Saturday, citing a half-dozen individuals closely associated with a US Department of Justice probe. The sources told AP that the investigation was concentrating on three or four individual [...]
US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens suggested to a gathering of lawyers and judges Friday in Tennessee that the Kentucky Derby horse Eight Belles may have been euthanized more humanely than some prisoners. The Chattanooga Times Free Press reported Stevens had been surprised to find out that one of the three drugs authorized for [...]
A US military judge has ruled that US Air Force Reserve Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann , a top Pentagon legal adviser on the Guantanamo military commission trials, is ineligible to participate in the first military commission trial of a detainee because he is too closely associated with the prosecution, the New York Times reported Saturday. [...]
Pakistani ministers and officials scrambled Sunday as a second deadline for restoring judges ousted by President Pervez Musharraf in November loomed with little prospect of being met. An aide to former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who has pressed hard for the reinstatement , was quoted by AP as saying that an "acceptable solution" would be [...]
The military junta of Myanmar held a national referendum on a draft constitution Saturday despite sharp international criticism for going ahead with the poll after a devastating cyclone last weekend left at least 60,000 people dead or missing. Voting in the hardest-hit areas has been delayed until later this month, but state media encouraged citizens [...]
Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori , currently on trial for human rights violations during his three terms in office from 1990-2000, is showing lack of respect for the court and the trial process by his courtroom behavior, Peruvian prosecutors said Friday. Earlier this week Fujimori burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter after hearing military [...]
