Former Saddam-era deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz , brought before the Iraqi High Tribunal Monday to testify against six defendants accused of genocide in the Anfal trial , instead denied that Hussein's government had ever carried out any such attacks. Aziz insisted that Iraq did not have the chemical weapons necessary for the alleged poison [...]
The lower house of the Jordanian parliament approved a bill Sunday that would subject journalists to jail sentences for defaming any religion protected under the country's constitution – i.e. Islam, Christianity or Judaism – or "offending the prophets" by their writing or by cartoons. Imprisonment could also result from any "insult to religious sentiments and [...]
Ugandan judges began a week-long general strike Monday to protest last Thursday's siege of the High Court and seizure of defendants by government forces. Court witnesses said that six defendants were rearrested by security forces in court after having been granted bail. The defendants' lawyer was also beaten unconscious by security forces. Elias Kisawuzi, spokesperson [...]
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki Monday denounced a weekend raid by UK-led coalition forces and Iraqi soldiers on the local Basra headquarters building of the National Iraqi Intelligence Agency, ordering an investigation into the incident and declaring that those responsible would be punished. A British military spokesman nonetheless defended the legitimacy of the operation, recalling [...]
A former Sudanese militia leader recently accused of war crimes by the International Criminal Court denied attacking Darfur civilians or displacing refugees in an article published in Sudan's Al Intibaha newspaper Sunday. Ali Kushayb insisted he was assigned to the region only to protect the villagers from Arab militias. Kushayb and Ahmed Muhammed Harun, former [...]
The US Supreme Court handed down decisions in two cases Monday, including Lance v. Coffman, where the Court concluded that four Republican voters in Colorado did not have standing to challenge a court-ordered congressional redistricting plan. A state judge in Colorado drew up a redistricting plan in 2002 when the state legislature was unable to [...]
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday that the US House of Representatives' proposed resolution , which urges Japan to apologize to women who were forced into sexual slavery during World War II, "is not based on objective facts." Last Thursday, Abe denied that the Imperial Japanese Army forced women into prostitution during World War [...]
The US Supreme Court Monday refused to expedite its consideration of a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by Guantanamo Bay detainees seeking review of the 2006 Military Commissions Act (MCA) . Two Guantanamo detainees, Salim Ahmed Hamdan and Omar Khadr , filed the motion to expedite last week, asking the Court to review [...]
Mubarak Hussain bin Abul Hasim, a Bangladeshi who had been detained for five-years at Guantanamo Bay , told AFP following his release from Bangladeshi detention last Thursday that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay gave electric shocks and subjected the detainees to low temperature cells, where Mubarak spent "two days straight without food and without any clothes." [...]
Chief US military commissions prosecutor Col. Morris Davis (USAF) has criticized the conduct of the US military lawyer for Australian Guantanamo detainee David Hicks , suggesting that Major Michael Mori (USMC) has been playing politics with his case outside the bounds of proper legal representation. On Saturday, The Australian newspaper quoted Davis as saying "Certainly [...]
