Egypt court says forgery sophistication prompted Nour conviction News
Egypt court says forgery sophistication prompted Nour conviction

[JURIST] The Egyptian court that in December sentenced [JURIST report] opposition leader Ayman Nour [BBC profile] to five years in prison for forging signatures to register his Al-Ghad party in last year's presidential election said Saturday that it had convicted Nour and his six co-defendants because of the danger posed by the sophistication of their forgery techniques. In a report on the ruling it asserted that Nour's denials of the charges were simply attempts to escape questions about his crimes. Nour, who was a distant runner-up in the election which returned Hosny Mubarak [official website] to power, has denied the charges and his lawyer plans to register an appeal and ask for a suspension of the verdict. The US has denounced Nour's conviction and called for his release. AP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.