Iran has charged women's rights activists Ronak Safarzadeh and Hana Abdi with acting "against national security" by allegedly participating in terrorist acts, an Iranian judge said Sunday. The two women were arrested in October and are accused of having connections to Kurdish leftist group Party for Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK) and of using their [...]
Former Hollinger International President David Radler was sentenced Monday by a US federal judge to 29 months in prison. Radler pleaded guilty in 2005 to one count of mail fraud after agreeing to serve as a witness against the company's former Chairman and CEO Conrad Black , who was convicted earlier this year of mail [...]
Prosecutors in Malaysia on Monday dropped attempted murder charges brought against 26 ethnic Indians for their role in anti-discrimination demonstrations held last month. The defendants have instead pleaded guilty to lesser charges of illegal assembly, mischief and damaging property. They face a maximum of five years in prison and will be sentenced on December 27. [...]
New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine on Monday signed into law a bill ending the use of capital punishment , making New Jersey the first state to abolish the use of the death penalty since the US Supreme Court reinstated it nationally in 1976. The legislation was passed by the New Jersey Assembly last week, just [...]
The Bush administration has proposed a draft regulation that would give political appointees in the Defense Department a role in the promotion of military lawyers working as members of the Judge Advocate General Corps, the Boston Globe reported over the weekend. Some 4,000 lawyers work as JAGs across the military, and their hirings and promotions [...]
An Act to Eliminate the Death Penalty, December 17, 2007 . Read the full text of the bill . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.
The ranking member of the US House Select Committee on Intelligence said Sunday that the committee would proceed with its investigation into the CIA's destruction of videotapes showing the interrogation of terror suspects, despite the Justice Department's advice that the CIA not cooperate with the probe and request that the committee delay its investigation pending [...]
Some 50,000 detainees held by Iraqi and US authorities in Iraqi could be freed by the end of 2008, an Iraqi official said Sunday. Iraqi national security advisor Muwafaq al-Rubaei said that 24,000 detainees held in facilities run by the Iraqi defense, interior and justice ministries could be freed under what appears to be an [...]
Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe has suspended the country's attorney general on charges of corruption and established a three-person tribunal to investigate the charges. Officials charged Attorney General Sobusa Gula-Ndebele in November with acting contrary to or inconsistent with his duty as a public officer in violation of section 174 (1) of the Criminal Law (Codification [...]
The chairman of one of Pakistan's two leading opposition groups said Sunday that his party would seek to reverse constitutional amendments unilaterally promulgated by President Pervez Musharraf in association with his lifting of emergency rule on Saturday. Pakistan Muslim League-N chief Raja Zafarul Haq said that the PML-N, led by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif [...]
