The trial of 30 suspected terrorists accused of plotting to explode the Spanish National Court in Madrid began Monday. The defendants are charged with membership in a terrorist organization, conspiracy to commit a terrorist attack and forgery. The group, led by alleged mastermind Abderrahmane Tahiri, also known as Mohamed Achraf, allegedly planned to run a [...]

Emadeddin Baghi , founder of Iran's Society for Defending Prisoners' Rights , was arrested on charges of violating national security, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported Sunday. An unnamed government official told IRNA that Baghi and family members had participated in opposition meetings designed to overthrow Iran's Islamic regime. Specifically, Baghi has been charged [...]

Erik Prince, founder and owner of private security firm Blackwater USA , said Sunday that his company welcomes the ongoing US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigation into the killing of 17 Iraqis last month by a Blackwater security detail. In an interview with 60 Minutes , Prince said that he has not seen evidence [...]

Israeli Attorney General Menahem Mazuz Sunday ordered a new criminal investigation into the activities of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert while he was serving as the country's trade minister from 2003-2006. According to a justice ministry statement obtained by AFP, Olmert will face a police investigation over "political appointments and assisting political cronies in different public [...]

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Saturday called on citizens worldwide to "break the silence" and pressure their governments to help apprehend Sudanese war crimes suspects in Darfur for prosecution by the ICC. In an interview with the Canadian Press, Luis Moreno-Ocampo urged foreign governments to take a lead role in arresting [...]

The US Congressional-Executive Commission on China has flagged ongoing human rights abuses and the stalled development of the rule of law in China in its latest Annual Report . The Commission, consisting of nine US senators, nine House members and five executive appointees, highlighted two general concerns in its 2007 review submitted Wednesday: 1) Chinese [...]

Jameel Jaffer : "Recent media reports reveal that the Justice Department issued two legal memoranda in 2005 that authorized the CIA to use a slew of inhumane interrogation methods, including "head slapping," "waterboarding," and extreme temperatures — according to the New York Times "the harshest interrogation techniques" ever used by the agency. The first of [...]

General Yasar Buyukanit , commander of the Turkish Armed Forces, warned Sunday that US-Turkish ties will be permanently damaged if the US House of Representatives passes a resolution labeling as genocide the World War I-era killings of over one million Armenians by Turkish soldiers . The resolution was approved by the House Foreign Relations Committee [...]

Annual Report 2007, US Congressional-Executive Commission on China, October 10, 2007 . Read the full text of report . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

The US military announced Saturday that a former senior officer at the Camp Cropper detention camp in Iraq will face a Baghdad court-martial beginning Monday on four counts of violating the United States Code of Military Justice. Lieutenant Colonel William H. Steele, former commander of the 451st Military Police Detachment, is charged with aiding the [...]