The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda on Wednesday unanimously acquitted former education minister Andre Rwamakuba on genocide charges, ruling that the prosecution failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. Rwamakuba, also a physician, was charged with genocide, or alternatively, complicity in genocide, and extermination and murder as crimes against humanity for allegedly ordering [...]
Miguel Osvaldo Etchecolatz , former chief investigator of the Buenos Aires province police, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Tuesday for his role during the Dirty War in Argentina . With the conviction, Etchecolatz becomes the second person to be sentenced for crimes committed during the Dirty War since the Argentine Supreme Court in June [...]
A senior Spanish judicial officer said Tuesday that 29 suspects accused of the 2004 Madrid train bombings are scheduled to go on trial in February 2007, with the proceeding ending by July and a final decision expected by October. A Spanish judge originally charged the 29 defendants in April. Five of the 29 are accused [...]
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf called for a ban on the "defamation of Islam" during his speech at the 61st Session of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday. Citing feelings in the Muslim world of "desperation and injustice" in the face of oppression and the war on terror, Musharraf said: We also need to bridge, through [...]
The government of Rwanda and the UN-sponsored International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) on Tuesday resolved a dispute over the court's alleged hiring of genocide suspects by agreeing to improve information-sharing mechanisms and to conduct background checks on job applicants to avoid the problem in the future. The row erupted when the ICTR successfully pressed [...]
Mexican officials are willing to begin extraditing suspected drug lords held in Mexican custody to the US to face drug charges, Mexican President Vicente Fox said Tuesday at a press conference in New York. On Monday, alleged cartel mastermind Francisco Rafael Arellano Felix , who was the first major accused drug dealer to be extradited [...]
Canada's House of Commons on Tuesday voted 172-116 to approve a controversial softwood lumber trade agreement between Canada and the US that would end a two-decades old trade dispute between the two countries by removing punitive tariffs now levied against Canadian timber and refunding 80 percent of collected tariffs, or approximately $4 billion, back to [...]
US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Tuesday defended US conduct in handling the Maher Arar case, saying that while the US did in fact deport the Canadian citizen, the US was "not responsible for his removal to Syria," and that if US officials had rendered Arar to Syria, they only would have done so if they [...]
Thai Army chief Gen. Sondhi Boonyaratkalin , who led Tuesday's coup ousting the Thai civilian government , told reporters Wednesday that he will serve as acting prime minister and hopes to find a replacement prime minister and enact a temporary constitution within two weeks. Sondhi also said Thailand will hold a general parliamentary election in [...]
The Judicial Conference of the United States has approved policies requiring judges to disclose their sponsors when traveling to attend seminars, and to investigate financial conflicts of interest more closely. Under the first measure , nongovernmental sources who pay for judges to attend seminars must disclose their patronage on the Judicial Branch website and judges [...]
