The US District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania sentenced Russian nuclear engineer Mark M. Kaushansky to 15 months in prison Thursday for his participation in a corruption scheme with former Russian Atomic Minister Yevgeny Adamov . The two were accused of stealing up to $9 million in aid designated to upgrade unsafe Russian [...]
The Supreme Court of Pakistan granted bail Thursday to Shumail Raj and Shahzina Tariq, a same-sex couple sentenced to three years in prison for perjury by a Lahore high court for "misrepresenting" Raj's sex, and agreed to hear an appeal in the case. Raj underwent surgery 16 years ago to remove her uterus and breasts [...]
The United States has renewed pressure on Myanmar to release democracy advocate and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi , a US State Department spokesperson said Thursday. Spokesman Tom Casey said that Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Eric G. John met with officials from Myanmar earlier this week in Beijing for a [...]
Ryan Olden, Pitt Law '10, files from Prishtina: The former Yugoslavia was a federal country comprised of many different ethnicities – Slovenes, Bosnians, Serbs, and Albanians and others. After the death of strongman Josip Tito in 1980, the federation began to break down as new leader Slobodan Milosevic tried to assert Serbian dominance. The inevitable [...]
Ali Khan : "President Musharraf is no King James I and Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry is no Chief Justice Edward Coke, but since Pakistan has been part of the British Empire and the common law traditions continue to inform the Pakistani legal system, a brief narrative of the tensions between James I and Chief Justice [...]
Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman (D) was sentenced to over seven years in prison for bribery and obstruction of justice Thursday. Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy were convicted in June 2006 on federal bribery and fraud charges . Siegelman was convicted on 10 counts, including bribery, conspiracy, and mail fraud. Scrushy was found [...]
A Quebec court Wednesday sentenced former Canadian advertising executive Jean LaFleur to 42 months in prison for his role in the Canadian federal sponsorship scandal . Lafleur pleaded guilty in April to billing the Canadian federal government for work which was never done, and ultimately bilking the government of almost $1.6 million in contracts his [...]
The Japanese Sapporo High Court Thursday upheld a 2004 lower court decision rejecting a lawsuit brought by Chinese plaintiffs who say they were forced to work as slave laborers in mines and factories during World War II. The lawsuit, originally filed in 1999, sought nearly seven million dollars in compensation from the Chinese government and [...]
A Democratic Republic of Congo military court Thursday acquitted three former employees of Australian Anvil Mining Ltd. who were charged with complicity in war crimes committed when government soldiers killed more than 100 people in the border town of Kilwa in response to a brief rebel uprising in 2004. A court document obtained by Reuters [...]
Both the prosecution and the defense requested additional delays Thursday in the war crimes trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor . Lawyers say they need more time to prepare for the first witness, who is currently scheduled to testify on Tuesday. Taylor's trial at the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) has suffered [...]
