US law firm Milberg LLP , formerly Milberg Weiss, is in negotiations with federal prosecutors to settle accusations related to an alleged kickback scheme, sources told Reuters on Tuesday. The firm pleaded not guilty in 2006 to fraud and conspiracy charges for allegedly paying up to $11.3 million since 1984 to individuals to serve as [...]
Zimbabwean police Tuesday released several hundred opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters detained after police raids last week. Twenty-nine women and children were released almost immediately last week, while the rest were released Tuesday pursuant to a court order . Witnesses say that police were searching for vote counting materials that might show that [...]
US District Judge James Robertson said Monday in a court hearing that he would set a dollar figure on the US government's alleged mismanagement of trust funds for a group of some 500,000 Native Americans in a 12-year class action lawsuit against the US Department of the Interior . Plaintiffs led by Eloise Cobell have [...]
Lawyers in China are subject to increasing persecution and intimidation by the Chinese government, according to a report released Tuesday by Human Rights Watch (HRW) . The report found that rights lawyers working on cases involving sensitive issues, including land evictions , face the greatest opposition from authorities. According to the report's summary: Over the [...]
The trial of former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and seven co-defendants began at the Iraqi High Tribunal in Baghdad on Tuesday. Aziz, deputy prime minister under Saddam Hussein's regime, and his co-defendants are charged in connection with the 1992 execution of 42 merchants accused by Hussein's government of causing a sharp increase in [...]
A Chinese court sentenced 30 people to prison Tuesday for their roles in protests against Chinese rule in Tibet last month. Three men received life sentences, including a Buddhist monk accused of destroying government property and leading attacks on police, while others were sentenced to terms ranging from three to 20 years. Chinese officials have [...]
Pojamarn Shinawatra, the wife of former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra , on Tuesday entered a written plea of not guilty to corruption and fraud charges before the Thai Supreme Court. Pojamarn challenged the legitimacy of the anti-graft Assets Examination Commission in her pleading and argued that she cannot be charged with corruption because she [...]
Civil rights lawyer Jonathan Feinberg filed a lawsuit Monday on behalf of 11 inmates challenging the "unconstitutional conditions" in which inmates are currently being held at four Philadelphia jails. US District Judge R. Barclay Surrick of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania ruled last January that overcrowded Philadelphia jails violate inmates' constitutional rights and therefore require [...]
The International Criminal Court on Tuesday made public an arrest warrant for Bosco Ntaganda, who is accused of committing war crimes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo . The arrest warrant was issued in August 2006, but an ICC pre-trial chamber unsealed the warrant on Monday. According to an ICC press release : is [...]
Top US Department of Defense officials said that there could be no acquittals at Guantanamo Bay military commissions and pressured prosecutors to bring charges against detainees, according to Monday testimony by former Guantanamo Bay chief military prosecutor Col. Morris Davis at a pre-trial hearing for detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan . Davis resigned his position in [...]
