The US Department of Defense has said that two charges have been referred against Saudi Guantanamo Bay detainee Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed Haza al-Darbi for his alleged connections to al Qaeda. Al-Darbi is the brother-in-law of Khalid al Mihdhar, one of the Sept. 11 hijackers who crashed a jet into the Pentagon. According to the Defense [...]
Howard A. Learner : "Sixteen environmental and Alaskan conservation organizations, represented by public interest attorneys from the Environmental Law & Policy Center, filed an amicus curiae brief before the U.S. Supreme Court in the Exxon (Valdez) Shipping case focused on the important issue of whether the federal Clean Water Act should be held to preempt [...]
Joe Stork : "New arrests of Muslim Brotherhood members have brought the total number arrested in the first two months of 2008 to more than 600. Egyptian officials say the grounds for arrest consist of membership in an illegal organization. The authorities indeed have banned the Muslim Brotherhood, but this is a decree that violates [...]
Ana Aguilar García : "The judicial reform foresees two sets of important provisions. One related with the elimination of the inquisitorial system, setting forth the adversarial system for the criminal proceedings, and the other the one that establishes special rules against organized crime. A new system with the features of an adversarial system is welcomed [...]
Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic has said that Serbia plans to ask the International Court of Justice to determine whether the Kosovo's recent declaration of independence "represents a violation of international law." Jeremic's comments came following a Thursday meeting of Balkan foreign ministers in Sofia. Meanwhile Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostiunica has requested that UN [...]
Armenia President Robert Kocharian declared a state of emergency Saturday, as police forced approximately 15,000 demonstrators to disperse from the capital city of Yerevan. The protests are the result of the contested February 19 presidential election in which Prime Minister Serzh Sarksyan , a Kocharian ally, was declared the winner . Supporters of the opposition [...]
Pakistani police on Saturday filed preliminary charges against Baitullah Mehsud , the top Taliban leader in Pakistan, and four others in the assassination of former prime minister Benzhair Bhutto . The charges were filed at an anti-terrorism court in the city of Rawalpindi and arrest warrants were issued for Mehsud, Ibadur Rehman, Imramullah, Faiz Muhammad [...]
An Iraqi appeals court on Friday overturned the conviction and death sentence of Mohammad Munaf , a US citizen and former translator charged with orchestrating the kidnapping of three Romanian journalists held for 55 days in Iraq in 2005. Munaf's lawyer said that the charges were dismissed after the court could not determine the role [...]
The court-martial of US Marine Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich was postponed indefinitely on Friday to allow prosecutors time to appeal a judge's decision to throw out a subpoena for unaired footage from a CBS interview with Wuterich. Military prosecutors argued that the additional footage contains information vital to the case, and that Wuterich may have [...]
The military government of Myanmar on Friday brought charges against 20 pro-democracy dissidents under a new security law, charges which carry a penalty of up to 20 years in prison. The dissidents were charged under the so-called 5/96 law , which prohibits, among others, any "inciting, demonstrating, delivering of speeches…in order to undermine the stability [...]
