A senior official in a Rwanda human rights organization was arrested Wednesday in the capital of Kigali after being implicated by a local gacaca court in the 1994 genocide. The official, Francois-Xavier Byuma, is vice president of the board of the Rwandan League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LIPRODHOR) and president of [...]
Members of the Ukranian Parliament have requested that the Ukrainian Constitutional Court rule on the legality of President Viktor Yushchenko's dismissal of three judges from its bench, according to the court's information office Tuesday. The request came after last Friday's dismissal of Volodymyr Ivashchenko, the third Constitutional Court judge removed for alleged oath and ethics [...]
A US district judge gave the State of Tennessee permission Wednesday to perform an autopsy on executed Seventh Day Adventist Philip Workman , despite Workman's pre-execution objections to the procedure on the grounds that it would conflict with his religious beliefs. Chief District Judge Todd Campbell of the US Middle District of Tennessee found that [...]
Judge Thomas E. Connolly of the Massachusetts Suffolk County Superior Court has ruled that the marriages of more than 170 same-sex couples from New York who married in Massachusetts before the New York Court of Appeals upheld a ban on New York same-sex marriage on July 6, 2006, are valid because a 1913 Massachusetts statute [...]
Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada , one of Pakistan's most renowned lawyers, presented the government's case against ousted Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry Wednesday to a panel of Supreme Court judges. Dismissing Chaudhry's claims that his March 9 suspension order was illegal and that Pakistan's Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) lacked competence to try him, Pirzada cited several [...]
US Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad said Tuesday that the US will submit a draft resolution to the UN Security Council to establish a tribunal under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to try suspects in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri . According to Khalilzad, the US decided to [...]
A panel of three judges on the London Court of Appeal Criminal Division reduced the sentence of convicted bomb plotter Dhiren Barot from a minimum of 40 years to life to 30 years to life Wednesday because Barot's conspiracy did not amount to an actual attempt and it was unclear whether the plot was viable. [...]
Nine defendants in the 2004 Madrid train bombings trial indicated in court Wednesday that they have begun a hunger strike, joining four other defendants who initiated the hunger strike last Thursday. The thirteen defendants are among eighteen who remain in custody during the trial, while eleven other defendants have been released on bail. Judge Javier [...]
Fifty-six former Harvard Law School classmates of US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have signed an open letter published Tuesday, rebuking Gonzales for his "failure to stand for the rule of law" and failure at doing "the tough job of providing independent counsel" and urging Gonzales "to restore respect for the rule of law." The letter, [...]
Jonathan Samkange, senior lawyer for the legal team defending Simon Mann in his extradition proceedings, was released by Harare police in Zimbabwe Wednesday after being arrested Monday night for alleged violations of Zimbabwe's Immigration Act . Following applications by fellow lawyers seeking to have charges against Samkange clarified, Harare magistrate Lazarus Murendo ordered the lawyer [...]
