Tymoshenko's government was dissolved last March after she narrowly lost the presidential election to Viktor Yanukovych [official website, in Ukrainian]. The Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) [official website, in Ukrainian] combined two separate criminal cases [press release, in Ukrainian; JURIST report] and concluded a pre-trial investigation of Tymoshenko in February. The combined cases against Tymoshenko include charges initiated in December for allegedly misappropriating state funds during her time as prime minister from 2007-2010 and new charges in January alleging that she abused her authority and exceeded her official duties [JURIST reports]. Last May, prosecutors reopened a separate criminal investigation [JURIST report] into allegations that Tymoshenko attempted to bribe Supreme Court judges. The probe was initiated in May 2004 and then suspended [JURIST report] in June 2005. Last February, Tymoshenko withdrew a lawsuit [JURIST reports] filed in the Supreme Administrative Court of Ukraine claiming that the country's presidential election was corrupt. Tymoshenko had alleged that widespread voter fraud allowed Yanukovych to win the election.

In 2002, Vincent and Liza Concepcion purchased a discounted cellular telephone from AT&T and later accused the company of false advertising and fraud upon discovery that they had been charged sales tax on the device's full value. Despite an arbitration clause in their service contract, the couple brought a federal class action suit against the company. Counsel for the Concepcions urged the Supreme Court to uphold the lower court rulings, arguing, in part, that the California law is valid because it "[ensures] that arbitration is a matter of consent and not coercion, and that it represents merely a choice of forum, but not an exemption from the law."

In April, a Somali pirate was sentenced [JURIST report] by the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website] to 25 years in prison [press release, PDF] for attacking a Danish ship off the coast of Somalia in 2008, for which he and other pirates received a $1.7 million ransom. In March, a grand jury in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia indicted [text, PDF] 14 suspects for overtaking Quest, a yacht operated by four Americans. The Americans, who were taken as hostages and later killed by the pirates, were the first US citizens to die in the recent wave of international maritime piracy [JURIST news archive]. The suspects, 13 Somali and one Yemeni, were charged [JURIST report] with piracy, conspiracy to commit kidnapping and the use of firearms during a crime. Piracy remains an issue of international concern, as few countries have been willing to prosecute suspected pirates. The few that have attempted to do so include Germany, Seychelles, the Netherlands, Mauritius, Yemen, Somalia and Spain [JURIST reports].

The medical affidavits in each of the nine cases indicate that the specific allegations of torture and ill treatment are highly consistent with physical and psychological evidence documented in the medical records and evaluations by non-governmental medical experts. However, the medical personnel who treated the detainees at [Guantanamo Bay] failed to inquire and/or document causes of the physical injuries and psychological symptoms they observed.

The military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba was opened in January 2002 [JURIST Archives report], and has consistently been a focal point for national and international controversy over the treatment of detainees. Earlier this week, WikiLeaks [official website] began publishing The Guantanamo Files [materials], a collection of more than 700 classified documents relating to the evidence and treatment of almost all detainees held at the facility between 2002 and 2008. A letter from a Guantanamo Bay detainee, made public in 2009, noted his deteriorating medical state and alleged that conditions at the prison worsened [JURIST report] for detainees in the year following President Barack Obama's election. In 2007, more than 260 doctors from 16 countries signed a letter critical of US military physicians for participating in the force-feeding of at least 128 detainees [JURIST reports] on hunger strikes.