Rear Adm. Harry Harris, commander of the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay , has said that he supports so-called "habeas visits" of lawyers with detainees at the facility and no longer endorses visit restrictions along the lines outlined in a recent US Department of Justice filing with the US DC Circuit Court of Appeals. [...]
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An Italian judge Friday rejected government arguments that Italian prosecutors had overstepped their authority in bringing charges against 26 US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents and two former Italian intelligence officials for the 2003 abduction and rendition of Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr . The case is scheduled to go to trial June 8. [...]
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko Friday appointed a new judge to the nation's Constitutional Court , the second such appointment in two days. Stepan Havrysh and Vasyl Kostytsky will replace two judges Yuschenko dismissed earlier this week for procedural and ethics violations. Justice Minister Oleksandr Lavrynovych criticized the appointments, saying that the the president could not [...]
Guantanamo Bay detainee Gouled Hassan Dourad has denied accusations of involvement with al-Qaeda, according to a transcript of his April 28 hearing before a Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) released by the Pentagon Friday. Dourad, a Somali, submitted a statement to be read at the hearing in lieu of making an appearance in which he [...]
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger Thursday signed a $7.7 billion bipartisan bill to construct facilities to provide 53,000 new prison and jail beds over the next five years to alleviate California's overcrowded prisons . Last week state legislators approved the Public Safety and Offender Rehabilitation Services Act of 2007 , hoping to expand the state's prison [...]
Chinese Human Rights Defenders Friday criticized the Chinese government for continuing to persecute and intimidate human rights defenders such as lawyers, academics and journalists in a report issued on the anniversary of the 1919 May Fourth Movement . The report, the group's second annual, lists several activists who have been imprisoned or otherwise prosecuted for [...]
Freedom of the press suffered serious setbacks around the world in 2006, according to a new report from Freedom House . The study, Freedom of the Press 2007: A Global Survey of Media Independence, noted particular causes for concern in the Middle East and North Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Russia. Overall, the report examined [...]
Former US Deputy Attorney General James Comey testified Thursday that seven of eight prosecutors at the center of the US Attorney firing scandal were performing their jobs well before being dismissed, and that the eighth was "a fine guy" but "had management problems in office." During a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing , Comey also said [...]
The convicted assassin and terrorist known popularly as "Carlos the Jackal" – Venezuelan-born Ilich Ramirez Sanchez – may soon be forced to stand trial in France for his alleged participation in four deadly terror bombings in 1982 and 1983, according to a French judicial official speaking on condition of anonymity Friday. Jean-Louis Bruguiere , France's [...]
The Romanian Constitutional Court Thursday upheld an opposition-sponsored bill making it easier to remove the country's president by reducing the number of popular votes required for impeachment. Existing legislation requires more than half of Romania's citizens to support removal, making impeachment almost impossible. President Traian Basescu was suspended by the opposition-dominated parliament last month for [...]
