The Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) has obtained a new legal team for former Liberian President Charles Taylor , appointing on Tuesday Courtenay Griffiths, QC as lead counsel and Andrew Cayley and Terry Munyard to serve as co-counsels on Taylor's defense team. Taylor, who has boycotted several trial sessions, has demanded that the SCSL [...]
The Tokyo High Court on Tuesday reversed a 2003 ruling awarding 190 million yen (approximately $1.56 million) in compensation to 13 Chinese plaintiffs injured by World War II-era chemical weapons left in China by the Japanese military. The court's decision came on the grounds that the plaintiffs had not sufficiently established that their injuries would [...]
A group of children of Holocaust survivors have filed a class action lawsuit against the German government in an Israeli court, seeking German financial contribution to an annual $10 million therapy fund for approximately 15,000 to 20,000 so-called second-generation Holocaust survivors. In the lawsuit Monday, the second-generation survivors argued that Nazi atrocities against their parents [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 2-1 Tuesday that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) did not improperly enter into consent agreements with "animal feeding operations" (AFOs). Several community and environmental groups challenged the consent agreements, which allow AFOs to emit pollution regulated by the Clean Air Act without liability [...]
The US Department of Justice's Corporate Fraud Task Force has obtained 1,236 corporate fraud convictions since its establishment five years ago, and has obtained more than one billion dollars in fines and restitutions, the DOJ said Tuesday. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales praised the work of the task force for helping "to create an environment where [...]
A prominent Russian lawyer and government critic was accused Tuesday of disclosing state secrets about government wiretapping to the Russian Constitutional Court . Boris Kuznetsov fled the country recently after a city court approved a criminal investigation last week; Tuesday's move by the Moscow prosecutor's office formally opened the investigation. The probe of Kuznetsov stems [...]
US District Judge Marcia Cooke ruled Tuesday that prosecutors had produced enough evidence in the trial of Jose Padilla and his co-defendants that the case should go to a jury, rejecting a motion for acquittal filed by the defense. The prosecution rested last week, at which time the defense filed the motion based on the [...]
The Bosnian war crimes tribunal Tuesday sentenced a Bosnian Muslim to 30 years in prison for war crimes committed against Serbs in the 1992 – 1995 civil war . Niset Ramic received the longest sentence yet handed down by the Bosnian War Crimes Chamber. The court found Ramic guilty of murdering four Serbian civilians in [...]
French Justice Minister Rachida Dati pressed a bill to toughen the country's criminal code in an appearance before the National Assembly Tuesday. The bill, which fulfills a campaign promise of French President Nicolas Sarkozy , will allow minors as young as 16 to be treated as adults when charges are serious. It will also establish [...]
A suicide bomber struck a lawyers' protest over the ousting of suspended Pakistan Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry in Islamabad Tuesday, killing at least 13 people and wounding at least 40. Chaudhry was not present at the time of the attack, which appeared to be aimed at his supporters. Witnesses told the BBC that [...]
