The government of Ecuador has set up a truth commission to investigate rights abuses committed in the country beginning in the early 1980s, a period that includes the 1984-88 presidency of right wing politician León Febres Cordero . The four-member commission, announced Thursday by current leftist President Rafael Correa and Interior Minister Gustavo Larrea, is [...]
A retired Indonesian general widely blamed for rights abuses committed by pro-Indonesian militias on the former Indonesian island territory of East Timor after an independence referendum in 1999 told an Indonesian-Timorese truth commission Saturday that it was "senseless and crazy" to blame Indonesia for the crimes. General Wiranto , then head of the Indonesian Army, [...]
Turkey's Office of the General Prosecutor is investigating Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for possible legal violations after he allegedly criticized the country's Constitutional Court following a controversial ruling earlier this week, CNN Turk reported Friday. At the instance of lawyer Sedat Vural, Erdogan is facing potential charges of attempting “to spread fear and [...]
A new Pentagon survey of the mental health of deployed US Army and Marine Corps troops in Iraq released Friday shows that a significant percentage approve of abusing and even torturing Iraqi non-combatants, finding that "only 47 percent of soldiers and 38 percent of Marines agreed that non-combatants should be treated with dignity and respect. [...]
The US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday that a racketeering lawsuit against Microsoft Corporation launched in respect of an alleged agreement with retailer Best Buy can proceed, overturning a lower court ruling. Consumers claimed that in the context of a promotional deal, Microsoft had arranged with Best Buy that when Best Buy customers [...]
Rear Adm. Harry Harris, commander of the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay , has said that he supports so-called "habeas visits" of lawyers with detainees at the facility and no longer endorses visit restrictions along the lines outlined in a recent US Department of Justice filing with the US DC Circuit Court of Appeals. [...]
An Italian judge Friday rejected government arguments that Italian prosecutors had overstepped their authority in bringing charges against 26 US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents and two former Italian intelligence officials for the 2003 abduction and rendition of Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr . The case is scheduled to go to trial June 8. [...]
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko Friday appointed a new judge to the nation's Constitutional Court , the second such appointment in two days. Stepan Havrysh and Vasyl Kostytsky will replace two judges Yuschenko dismissed earlier this week for procedural and ethics violations. Justice Minister Oleksandr Lavrynovych criticized the appointments, saying that the the president could not [...]
Guantanamo Bay detainee Gouled Hassan Dourad has denied accusations of involvement with al-Qaeda, according to a transcript of his April 28 hearing before a Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) released by the Pentagon Friday. Dourad, a Somali, submitted a statement to be read at the hearing in lieu of making an appearance in which he [...]
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger Thursday signed a $7.7 billion bipartisan bill to construct facilities to provide 53,000 new prison and jail beds over the next five years to alleviate California's overcrowded prisons . Last week state legislators approved the Public Safety and Offender Rehabilitation Services Act of 2007 , hoping to expand the state's prison [...]
