Ugandan High Court Justice John Bosco Katutsi on Friday became the second judge to withdraw from the trial of opposition presidential candidate Kizza Besigye for treason , citing primarily health reasons related to high blood pressure. Katutsi, who presided over Besigye’s trial for a rape charge in which a jury recommended a not guilty verdict [...]

A federal court hearing to decide whether Google will be required to comply with a request from the US Department of Justice for extensive excerpts from its search log has been postponed until March 13. US District Court James Ware gave no explanation for the delay. Last month, the DOJ filed a motion to force [...]

The Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SLPM) has threatened to take their northern counterpart, the National Congress Party (NCP) , to constitutional court if they fail to follow through on a peace deal enacted last year which ended Africa's longest civil war in southern Sudan and established a coalition government. The southern party, SLPM, claims that [...]

Australian Prime Minister John Howard has demanded an apology from US Senator Norm Coleman , saying that Coleman wrongly accused the Australian government of participating in illegal bribes to Saddam Hussein's former Iraqi regime through the now-defunct UN Oil-for-Food Program . In a letter to the Australian ambassador to the US, Coleman, head of the [...]

Responding to a petition from Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen , Cambodia's King Norodom Sihamoni reduced the jail term of opposition politician Cheam Channy from seven years to three, officials said Friday. Cheam Channy, a member of the opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) , was arrested in early 2005, charged with attempting to form a [...]

Robert J. Stein , a former US Defense Department contract official for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, pleaded guilty Thursday to charges of conspiracy, bribery, money laundering, unlawful possession of machine guns, and being a felon in possession of a firearm. Stein, along with American businessman Philip Bloom , was charged last year, and [...]

JURIST Special Guest Columnist Kathleen Duignan, Executive Director of the National Institute of Military Justice, says that the ostensibly-light sentence for Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr., the highest-ranking US soldier to face a court-martial for abusing an Iraqi detainee, may actually have been consistent with the military justice system's goals of encouraging clear guidance [...]

US District Judge Deborah A. Batts on Thursday denied a motion to dismiss a class action lawsuit against former Environmental Protection Agency head Christine Todd Whitman , saying her reassurances about the air quality in New York after the September 11 attacks "shock[] the conscience." The New York Environmental Law and Justice Project brought the [...]

The US Senate late Thursday evening passed a one-month extension of the USA Patriot Act by a 95-1 vote . The extension until March 10 has already been approved by the US House and will now go to President Bush for his signature. Sixteen provisions of the Patriot Act were set to expire at the [...]

Tension over the publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad flared into violence in Europe and across the Muslim world Thursday and Friday with members of the Front for Defenders of Islam (FPI) storming the Danish embassy in Jakarta and gunmen surrounding an EU office in Gaza. More trouble is expected in the wake of [...]