US District Judge Stanley S. Brotman ruled late last week that the US Virgin Islands has inadequate health care available for the territory's mentally ill prisoners awaiting trial. Brotman threatened to find the government in contempt if the conditions do not improve within two months. This is the fourth time in 12 years the court [...]
Russian President Vladimir Putin Sunday signed into law legislation that removes "reservations to some international treaties" made by the Soviet Union refusing to recognize the jurisdiction of the UN's International Court of Justice . When signing several international treaties concerning anti-terrorism in the 1980s, the Soviet Union included reservations refusing to recognize the jurisdiction of [...]
Members of the Cherokee Nation voted Saturday to adopt an amendment to the tribe's constitution , limiting membership in the Cherokee Nation and stripping approximately 2,800 descendants of former Cherokee slaves of tribal membership. Over 76 percent of voters backed the amendment , which limits citizenship "to those who are original enrollees or descendants of [...]
Colombian prosecutors have indicted prominent political boss Alvaro Araujo Noguera, accusing him of complicity in the 2002 kidnapping of a member of a rival political clan. Some say the kidnapping is part of a campaign by illegal paramilitary groups to elect sympathetic politicians. Members of the political elite in Colombia have been repeatedly accused of [...]
White House and US Justice Department officials have confirmed that seven US federal prosecutors were fired because they had not adequately carried out President George W. Bush's policies on immigration and firearms issues, according to a report in the Washington Post Saturday. The seven US Attorneys , who had been probing corruption among Republicans, subsequently [...]
Egyptian judge and president of the judges' syndicate Yahia Ragheb Daqruri said according to a report published Saturday that women cannot serve as judges because it would be against Sharia law . Daqruri's statements, appearing in the Saturday edition of independent daily Al-Masri Al-Yom , question the appropriateness of women judges deliberating "alone in a [...]
A Moroccan appeals court convicted 12 Islamic militants on terrorism charges Friday, handing down prison sentences ranging from two to 15 years. Eight of the defendants allegedly had ties to al-Qaeda and had volunteered to fight in Iraq . The main defendant, Tunisian Mohamed Ben El Hadi Messahel, allegedly made contact with seven of the [...]
A Kuwaiti court Saturday acquitted former Guantanamo Bay detainees Omar Rajab Amin and Abdullah Kamel al-Kundari of charges of fighting against US forces in Afghanistan because of insufficient evidence. The two were repatriated on September 15, 2006, after having been detained at Guantanamo Bay since January 2002. The verdict is not final, however, as the [...]
The jury in the perjury trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby asked US District Judge Reggie B. Walton for a "clarification of the term 'reasonable doubt'" Friday, concluding the eighth day of deliberations in the high profile CIA leak case . The jurors' written question specifically asked "is it necessary for the government to present [...]
El-Masri v. United States, US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, March 2, 2007 . Read the full text of the ruling . Reported in JURIST"s Paper Chase here.
