South African politician Jacob Zuma launched a legal challenge Tuesday in the South African Constitutional Court seeking to have evidence excluded from his upcoming corruption trial. Zuma argued that evidence seized in 2005 raids by the Directorate of Special Investigations , also known as "The Scorpions," should be thrown out because the raids violated his [...]
The legitimacy of military commissions of Guantanamo Bay detainees will be undermined by "the admission of evidence tainted by torture," according to a report released Monday by Human Rights First . The report cites the cases of six Guantanamo Bay detainees who have alleged that they were tortured in US custody, and says that so-called [...]
The first trial of a defendant accused of involvement in "forced disappearances" during Guatemala's 36-year civil war opened Monday. Felipe Cusanero, a former member of a civilian paramilitary unit, is alleged to have been responsible for the disappearances of at least six people from the farming village of Choatalum between 1982 and 1984. AP has [...]
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) began the trial of Croatian general Ante Gotovina and two other militant commanders Tuesday. Gotovina, Ivan Cermak, and Mladen Markac, are charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity for their alleged involvement in the 1995 Operation Storm , in which Croatian forces allegedly murdered 150 [...]
US House Government Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) accused the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Monday of withholding information from the committee and threatened to take action to compel production of the requested information connected to the EPA's decision to turn down California's greenhouse gas emissions waiver request. In a letter to the [...]
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) issued new guidelines Monday limiting the appointment of independent monitors to verify corporate compliance with deferred-prosecution agreements. The new guidelines, which prohibit corporations from hiring monitors with existing ties to the government or the corporation, will also require US attorneys to obtain clearance from the deputy attorney general before [...]
UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak accused Nigeria's national police of widespread human rights violations Monday, telling the UN Human Rights Council that Nigerian police routinely tortured suspects during investigations. Nowak also deplored Nigeria's unsanitary and overcrowded detention facilities, saying that some prisoners even lacked food and water. The UN Human Rights Council is [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Peter Erlinder of William Mitchell College of Law, attorney on appeal for Dr. Sami Al Arian, says that the treatment accorded the acquitted but still detained academic Palestinian activist from Tampa – now on hunger strike and in danger of irreversible renal failure at a federal prison hospital – is abuse of [...]
Committee on the Judiciary, United States House of Representatives, v. Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolten, US District Court for the District of Columbia, March 10, 2008 . Read the full text of the opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.
Former USA Today reporter Toni Locy filed an emergency motion Monday seeking to block a district court ruling finding her in contempt of court for refusing to disclose government sources who provided information about former US Army germ-warfare researcher Dr. Steven J. Hatfill . In his ruling Friday, US District Judge Reggie Walton ordered that, [...]
