German prosecutors Friday filed an appeal for the arrest of Mounir al-Motassadeq , a German 9/11 suspect free on bail following Thursday's overturning of a lower court decision acquitting Motassadeq of assisting the men who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks on the US. Hamburg's state superior court ruled that despite Motassadeq's conviction, he should [...]
US military Combatant Status Review Tribunals do not offer detainees at Guantanamo Bay an adequate opportunity to contest the accusations against them or to object to their status as enemy combatants , according to a report released Friday. Seton Hall law professor Mark Denbeaux and Joshua Denbeaux analyzed transcripts and recordings of 393 detainee hearings, [...]
Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said Friday that the government would investigate allegations that Netherlands military personnel abused Iraqi prisoners in 2003 by subjecting them to sleep deprivation, high-pitched noises and bright lights. According to a report Friday in Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant , Dutch interrogators carried out the abusive techniques in the southern [...]
The South African Department of Justice and Constitutional Development said Thursday that it is currently considering 1,107 applications for relief from prisoners claiming their incarceration is politically motivated. According to Minister Brigitte Mabandla, the South African constitution gives the president power to pardon the prisoners, many of whom have requested relief through the Inkatha Freedom [...]
A British Army major has testified that a military legal adviser approved techniques for preparing Iraqi detainees for interrogation with techniques that allegedly violated the Geneva Conventions . Maj. Antony Royce told a court-martial of several other soldiers charged with abusing Iraqi detainees that his superiors ordered him to "condition" the detainees for questioning by [...]
US Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) introduced legislation Thursday that would restore habeas corpus rights to military detainees and make other amendments to the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA) . A key provision in the MCA, which President Bush signed into law last month, strips US courts of jurisdiction to consider writs of habeas corpus [...]
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has ruled that President Bush "exceeded his constitutional authority by intruding into the independent powers of the judiciary" with an "unprecedented" directive ordering state court rehearings for 51 Mexican nationals convicted in US courts. The president's February 2005 memorandum instructed the Texas courts to follow a March 2004 decision [...]
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has overturned a ruling by a Sharia court for the first time by commuting the sentence of a man whom the court assigned the death penalty. Mirza Tahir Hussain , a British national, was convicted under Sharia Islamic law after killing a taxi driver in 1989, which he claims was in [...]
US President George W. Bush assured Australian Prime Minister John Howard Friday that Australian Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks would be brought to trial, but refused to give a timetable for the trial. Referring to Hicks' legal team's promise to challenge the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA) , Bush noted that Hicks is "having [...]
US District Judge John Houston Thursday temporarily stayed enforcement of an ordinance passed by the city of Escondido, California which would punish landlords for renting to illegal immigrants . The ordinance requires landlords to provide evidence of their tenants' immigration status to city officials, who would verify the data with federal government records. Under the [...]
