The federal judiciary has approved a pilot program that will allow the public to download free audio recordings of court proceedings over the internet. US District Judge Thomas F. Hogan , executive committee chairman of the policy-making Judicial Conference of the United States , said he views the program as an attempt to make court [...]
Hundreds of Pakistani lawyers in business suits clashed with police Saturday, throwing rocks after riot police fired teargas to disrupt a gathering to protest the suspension of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry . The clash took place notwithstanding Friday's move by the country's Supreme Judicial Council to lift all restrictions on the liberty of Chaudhry, [...]
African Union chairman Alpha Oumar Konare Saturday urged Zimbabwe to "respect human rights and democratic principles" in the wake of this week's arrest and alleged abuse of opposition leader and presidential hopeful Morgan Tsvangirai . Tsvangirai was released on Wednesday after goverment lawyers failed to appear in court to seek his further detention. Prosecutors may [...]
US senators Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) , both of whom watched last weekend's Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) hearing at Guantanamo Bay for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed , insisted in a joint statement Friday that his claims that he was tortured in US custody had to be "taken seriously and properly investigated", suggesting [...]
A US military court-martial found 101st Airborne Staff Sgt. Raymond Girouard guilty of three counts of negligent homicide Friday, but not guilty of premeditated murder for the deaths of three Iraqi detainees held after a May 2006 raid in Thar Thar, a town near Samarra in the northern Salahuddin province of Iraq. Girouard was also [...]
The European Commission (EC) plans to develop a common fingerprint database that includes data collected from criminals convicted of serious crimes within member states, a spokesperson announced Friday. EC spokesperson Ana-Paula Laiss denied claims made in the London Times that the database would require fingerprints even from people released without charge . The fingerprint plan [...]
Nigerian Vice President Atiku Abubakar filed a lawsuit Friday against the Nigerian electoral commission after it issued a ruling Thursday prohibiting him from running in the upcoming April presidential. The commission cited the Nigerian constitution , which bars presidential candidates indicted for crimes before a court or executive panel, for its decision. In February, a [...]
British coroner Andrew Walker ruled Friday that a US A-10 tank-buster "friendly fire" attack on a UK troop convoy that killed UK soldier Matty Hull "amounted to an assault. It was unlawful because there was no lawful reason for it and in that respect it was criminal." Walker's civilian inquiry, which had for a while [...]
Judges appointed to the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) reached an agreement Friday on the most pressing points of contention over the Khmer Rouge genocide trial rules after a 10-day meeting . In a statement made at the end of the talks, the panel of international and Cambodian judges said that only [...]
Former CIA operative Valerie Plame testified before the US House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Friday that the White House and US Department of State "carelessly and recklessly" blew her cover in an effort to discredit her diplomat-husband Joseph Wilson who had criticized US pre-war intelligence on Iraq. Plame's identity as a CIA operative was [...]
