Amnesty International Tuesday called on Iran to abolish executions by stoning , an execution method that Iran denies is still in official use. Amnesty decried stoning as a "grotesque and horrific" practice designed to inflict maximum suffering on condemned adulterers; it pointed to language in the Iranian penal code that said stones used should be [...]

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour Tuesday urged the Sri Lankan government to abide by international law as a 2002 ceasefire with the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) , or "Tamil Tigers," expires Wednesday. Fighting between government forces and the Tigers escalated in 2006, and last month the government announced it [...]

Three men were sentenced to life in prison Tuesday for a 2002 attempt to assassinate Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf . Mohammad Imran, Mohammad Hanif and Mohammad Ashraf, all thought to belong to the Harkut ul-Mujahideen al-Almi {MIPT backgrounder] terror group, were originally sentenced to 10 years each in 2003, but appealed their convictions. The Sindh [...]

A judge on one of Pakistan's anti-corruption Accountability Courts Tuesday dismissed charges against former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto following her December 27 assassination . Charges that Bhutto possessed assets beyond her known income, brought by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) , were rejected in light of her death. Corruption charges against Bhutto's former Director [...]

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to step up deportation of illegal immigrants serving time in US prisons and jails during 2008, ICE Assistant Secretary Julie L. Myers said in an interview published Tuesday in the New York Times. Myers said ICE deported nearly 64,000 illegal immigrants who were serving time for criminal convictions [...]

Norway has agreed to extradite an unnamed Croatian citizen wanted for his alleged involvement in the 1991 Vukovar massacre to Serbia to face war crimes charges, Norwegian officials said Tuesday. Croatia had requested the man's extradition in 2006; Norwegian justice officials concluded after an investigation that there was sufficient evidence to warrant extraditing the man [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that fraud claims by investors are not permitted against third parties that did not directly mislead those investors. In Stoneridge Investment Partners, LLC v. Scientific-Atlanta, Inc. , the court held 5-3 that investors in cable company Charter Communications Inc. did not have the right to sue over fraudulent transactions [...]

Four ethnic Russian Estonians accused of taking part in violence that occurred last year during the removal of a Red Army war memorial in Tallinn went on trial in Estonia Monday. The violence occurred last April when Estonia removed the prominent yet controversial Bronze Soldier from the capital city and more than 1,000 ethnic Russians [...]

The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers , will probably head the new UK Supreme Court when it opens in 2009, the Times reported Monday. The new top court, created by the Constitutional Reform Act of 2005 , will technically replace the judicial panel of the House of Lords [...]

Jose Rodriguez, the former head of the clandestine branch of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who ordered the destruction of videotapes showing the interrogation of terror suspects , will not appear at a closed congressional hearing later this week, his lawyer said Monday, indicating he had been excused because he would refuse to answer [...]