The Bush administration warned Democratic leaders over the weekend that US President George W. Bush will veto any attempt to extend the temporary Protect America Act beyond its February 1 expiration date that does not include liability protection for telecom companies, according to the Washington Post Sunday. The Protect Act, enacted as a stopgap while [...]
A Turkish court on Monday sentenced political science professor Atilla Yayla Monday for "insulting the legacy" of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey. Yayla was charged last March after suggesting in a November 2006 speech that Ataturk's regime from 1925 to 1945 was not as progressive as suggested by official Turkish literature. Yayla's lawyers [...]
French prosecutors asked a judge to file preliminary charges on Monday against alleged "rogue trader" Jerome Kerviel in connection with what is being called the largest bank fraud in history. Prosecutors asked for preliminary charges of forgery, breach of trust, and fraud against Kerviel, who turned himself in on Saturday and denies any wrongdoing. Societe [...]
The Israeli Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal by Omri Sharon to reduce his seven-month prison sentence, saying that it found no reason to lighten Sharon's sentence after a lower court reduced his sentence from nine months for good behavior. Sharon, who will begin serving his sentence on February 27, was convicted in February [...]
Several prominent Indonesian lawyers told AFP on Monday that a civil corruption case against former Indonesian President Haji Mohammed Suharto could continue after Suharto's death on Sunday. Suharto, who ruled Indonesia as President from 1967 to 1998, was sued by the government on charges that he embezzled $440 million from the Yayasan Supersemar , a [...]
A French criminal court on Monday sentenced six French aid workers, convicted in Chad for attempting to kidnap 103 African children, to eight years in French prison, agreeing with French prosecutors' recommendations to convert their sentences handed down by a court in Chad. The six were originally sentenced to eight years of hard labor in [...]
A Malaysian opposition leader released the third part of a video Monday that allegedly shows prominent Malaysian lawyer VK Lingam admitting to having bribed former Chief Justice Dzaiddin Abdullah. Abdullah was Chief Justice from 2000 to 2003. According to a press release from opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim accompanying the video, Lingam is quoted as saying, [...]
Miri Weingarten : "PHR-Israel has been immersed in the crisis that has engulfed Gaza since the takeover by Hamas in June 2007, and the resultant closing by Israel of all crossing points to goods and persons. Patients who prior to June had the possibility of accessing Egypt for medical care found this way barred from [...]
Neal A. Puckett : "The criminal justice system in America has certain checks and balances against overreaching by prosecutors when they bring felony charges. Some must simply file charges by information, which is then subject to a preliminary hearing before judge or magistrate who determines whether there is sufficient evidence to bind the defendant over [...]
Two former Iranian presidents and an ex-parliamentary speaker said Sunday that they plan to appeal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to overturn a ban prohibiting moderates and reformists in Iran from running in the March 2008 parliamentary election. Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami , a reformist, former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani , a pragmatic [...]
