Iranian judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Shahroudi has issued a decree barring judges from ordering the detention of suspects without the filing of formal charges, Iranian media reported Wednesday. Currently, the Iranian Constitution allows suspects to be held for up to 24 hours without charges. The decree also calls on judicial institutions to refrain from summoning [...]

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Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo arrested former Nationalist and Integrationist Front (FNI) leader Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui on Wednesday on war crimes and crimes against humanity charges and transferred him to the International Criminal Court at The Hague. Ngudjolo is accused of planning and carrying out an attack against the village of Bogoro in [...]

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The federal judge presiding over the trial of 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui was seeking information about the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah around the time the CIA destroyed videotapes of the interrogations of terror suspects, including Zubaydah, according to court documents released in the Moussaoui case Wednesday. The court documents also say that the lead prosecutor [...]

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JURIST Guest Columnist Benjamin Davis of the University of Toledo College of Law says that CIA chief Michael Hayden's recent admission to Congress that three "high value" terror detainees were waterboarded by US interrogators begs the question of whether American citizens will acquiesce in this state lawlessness because the torture was done by our government [...]

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A federal judge rejected an argument Wednesday by US Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) that an indictment against him unconstitutionally violated the Speech or Debate Clause , saying that Jefferson has "focused immunity" rather than "expansive immunity" under the clause. Jefferson had argued that grand jury testimony given by his staffers violated the Speech or Debate [...]

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Anne Heindel : "The provisional release hearing of "Brother Number Two," Khmer Rouge leader Nuon Chea, was cut short on Monday in response to a request by his Cambodian attorney. Son Arun argued that the proceedings must be adjourned due to the unavailability of his foreign co-counsel. Nuon's Dutch attorney Victor Koppe was unable to [...]

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