Iraqi prosecutors Monday sought the death penalty for Ali Hassan al-Majid , the cousin of Saddam Hussein known to Western media as "Chemical Ali" for allegedly using poisonous gas to clear Kurdish villages in the 1980s. Al-Majid is facing charges in a genocide trial based on the Saddam regime's involvement in the slaughter of tens [...]
Australian Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks has submitted an application to be transferred to a prison near his home in South Australia to serve the remainder of his nine-month sentence after pleading guilty to a charge of supporting terrorism last week. South Australia's Correctional Services Minister Carmel Zollo said she was told about the application [...]
Iraqi Shiite religious leader Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani Sunday rejected a proposed law which would return former Baath party members to their previously held government positions, according to Ahmed Chalabi , head of the Supreme National Commission for de-Baathification . The draft law, which was introduced by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Moeen Cheema, professor of Law & Policy at the Lahore University of Management Sciences in Lahore, Pakistan, says that following the removal of Pakistan Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry concrete constitutional reforms are needed to guarantee the independence of the Pakistani judiciary … The protest movement spontaneously initiated by the overwhelming majority of [...]
US Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) Sunday rejected attempts by the Bush administration to move up the date that US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is scheduled to testify regarding his role in the firings of eight US Attorneys . White House counselor Dan Bartlett urged the US Senate Judiciary Committee to push up Gonzales' testimony from [...]
The Australian Federal Police will determine whether Guantanamo Bay military prison detainee David Hicks will be subject to a control order when released from prison later this year, members of the Australian government said Sunday. On Friday a US military commission recommended sentencing Hicks to seven years in prison; all but nine months of that [...]
British resident and Iraqi citizen Bisher al-Rawi was released this weekend from the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay after nearly five years in custody as an enemy combatant. Officials have not confirmed the exact time of al-Rawi's release, but he issued a statement Sunday from his family's home in London. Al-Rawi expressed his happiness [...]
Israeli Attorney General Meni Mazuz notified lawyers for Israeli President Moshe Katsav that a second rape charge may be added to Katsav's indictment for alleged sex crimes. The additional charges were made by the same woman who originally accused Katsav of sexual assault, fraud, and rape but it has not been made clear why these [...]
US President George W. Bush again defended US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales over his role in the firings of federal prosecutors in a press conference Saturday, saying that Gonzales has his "full confidence." Bush called Gonzales "an honorable and honest man" and said that "there is no credible evidence that there has been any wrongdoing. [...]
Arab residents of the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk expressed anger Sunday at the government's plan to encourage relocation of the city's Arab population. Most of the city's current residents were forced to move to the now ethnically diverse, oil-rich city during the "Arabization" phase of Saddam Hussein's Anfal campaign , which drove out Kurds [...]
