Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani, commander of the US Marine battalion that was accused of killing 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha in November 2005, went before a military Article 32 hearing Wednesday that will determine if he will face a court-martial for charges of dereliction of duty and violating a lawful order. Viewing the aftermath [...]
The Ministry of Defense and Support for the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran v. Cubic Defense Systems, Inc., v. Dariush Elahi, US Court of Appeals for the Nine Circuit, May 30, 2007 . Read the full text of the decision . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.
Chief Justice Tulay Tugcu of Turkey's Constitutional Court asked prosecutors Wednesday to investigate whether criminal charges should be brought against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for televised comments made Tuesday that Tugcu believes may violate laws against insulting state institutions. During a televised interview on Tuesday, Erdogan called the court's May 1 decision to cancel [...]
A Kuwaiti appeals court upheld the acquittal of two former Guantanamo Bay detainees Tuesday, agreeing with a lower court that there was insufficient evidence to convict . The two men, Omar Rajab Amin and Abdullah Kamel al-Kundari , spent almost five years in Guantanamo Bay before being repatriated to Kuwait last September. There they were [...]
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Northern District of California Wednesday against San Jose-based Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen Dataplan , alleging that the airline service provider knowingly supported direct flights to secret CIA prisons, facilitating the torture and mistreatment of US detainees. The ACLU alleges that [...]
The Constitutional Court of the Kingdom of Thailand ordered the dissolution of the political party Thai Rak Thai (TRT) Wednesday after finding that it committed electoral fraud during last year's annulled elections in violation of national law. The ruling also bars former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and 110 other party officials from holding any political [...]
Serbia's Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor Tuesday confirmed an ongoing investigation conducted in cooperation with Croatian authorities against 12 former Serb paramilitary members for their alleged role in the "torture, inhuman treatment, and killing of 70 civilians" in the Croatian town of Lovas. The prosecutor's statement followed a report that Serbian police had arrested [...]
The New Jersey Department of the Public Advocate released a report Tuesday detailing cases of abuse of New Jersey's eminent domain laws, which the report criticized for being giving "overbroad statutory authority" that allowed the government to take "homes and businesses without meeting the basic principles of fairness enshrined in the New Jersey Constitution." The [...]
Former FBI Director William S. Sessions Wednesday applauded recent efforts to extend DNA testing, especially for the benefit of prisoners facing the death penalty. In a JURIST op-ed, Sessions said that a proposal by New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D) to expand New York's DNA database and an Ohio Supreme Court decision limiting prosecutorial discretion [...]
Russia's Office of the Prosecutor-General Wednesday dismissed suggestions by a Russian lawmaker that Andrei Lugovoy , currently sought by Britain's Crown Prosecution Service (CRS) for the poisoning murder of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko , could be extradited to the UK in exchange for Russian billionaire and alleged coup plotter Boris Berezovsky , now living [...]
