One of the bombers involved in a series of suicide attacks in Mosul, Iraq, in April was a former detainee held at Guantanamo Bay , the US military said Wednesday. Kuwaiti Abdullah Salim Ali al-Ajmi was detained in Afghanistan before being transferred to Guantanamo for three years; he was released to Kuwait in 2005. Kuwaiti [...]
The Michigan Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that governments and universities may not provide health benefits for same-sex partners of their employees. The 5-2 ruling interpreted a 2004 state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage to mean that same-sex couples are to be denied any of the benefits of marriage as well. The suit involved 21 families [...]
The US military has reduced the sentence of Marine Corps Sgt. Lawrence G. Hutchins III handed down after following his conviction last August for killing an Iraqi civilian, AP reported Thursday. Hutchins' attorney said he learned Tuesday that Hutchins will now serve only 11 years in detention at Fort Leavenworth and will have his rank [...]
JURIST Contributing Editor Marjorie Cohn of Thomas Jefferson School of Law says in this excerpt from her recent testimony to the US House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties that not only the high officials of the US government, but also the lawyers who advised them, should be investigated and [...]
Incoming Russian President Dmitry Medvedev , a lawyer who won Russia's presidency in March elections, stressed the importance of rights and freedoms at the outset of his inauguration address in the Kremlin Wednesday as he took over from outgoing President Vladimir Putin. Medvedev, a lawyer, said:I have just sworn the presidential oath, the oath taken [...]
European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering Wednesday faulted the ruling junta of Myanmar for saying it would go ahead with a scheduled May 10 referendum on a draft constitution in the aftermath of a devastating weekend cyclone that may have left up to 100,000 people dead . In a statement , Poettering said: We all are [...]
The Court of Appeal in London Wednesday rejected a government bid to challenge an order by the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission to remove an Iranian opposition group from its blacklist of terror organizations. The Court of Appeal ruled there was no evidence that the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran (PMOI) had been involved with terrorism [...]
A technical problem delayed the start of the arraignment hearing for Yemeni Guantanamo detainee Ali Hamza Ahman Sulayman al-Bahlul Wednesday when a courtroom sound feed in the brand new Guantanamo legal compound cut off for reporters in the spectator gallery. The compound's military commissions building is part of the US military's Expeditionary Legal Complex , [...]
The ruling Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) both filed legal challenges to the parliamentary results of Zimbabwe's March 29 general election Wednesday. ZANU-PF filed lawsuits challenging the outcome of 53 out of the 210 constituencies, while the MDC filed lawsuits challenging the results of [...]
Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez , a former US commanding general in Iraq, said in a new book published Tuesday that there is "irrefutable evidence" that the US military tortured and killed detainees in Afghanistan at the end of 2002. In Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story , Sanchez said that designating detainees as "enemy combatants" [...]
