A federal judge has said that the government must turn over documents detailing what the US knew before the Sept. 11 attacks to defense lawyers for Zacarias Moussaoui , in an order made public on Wednesday. In 2005, Moussaoui pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in connection with the attacks. The sentencing phase will begin next [...]

The Supreme Court of Japan Thursday rejected an appeal by six smokers who sued the Japanese government and a cigarette maker for illnesses they claim were caused by their smoking habits over a 33- to 50-year period. Japan's high court affirmed a 2003 lower court ruling that acknowledged smoking was hazardous to an individual's health [...]

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei and members of his Fatah party Cabinet submitted their resignations Thursday after initial results from Wednesday's Palestinian parliamentary elections – the first in ten years – appeared to give the militant Hamas movement a majority of seats in the 132-member Palestinian Legislative Council . Official results will be announced [...]

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) , ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has asked US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to clarify the steps being taken to protect the privacy of American citizens after a Department of Justice (DOJ) subpoena for information about internet searches from Google and other Internet search engines was made public. In [...]

Ugandan High Court Justice John Bosco Katutsi has denied a defense motion to dismiss treason charges against opposition leader Kizza Besigye on the grounds of vagueness. Defense lawyers had argued that the charges, alleging Besigye's involvement in a plot to overthrow the government, failed to identify the ringleader and offered no details of the alleged [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Susan Herman of Brooklyn Law School says that reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act is up for debate again in Congress just as revelations about the NSA domestic surveillance program remind us why executive power needs to be kept in check… The acronym USA PATRIOT turns out to be an apt name [...]

Kyrgyz Prime Minister Felix Kulov has appealed to the Kyrgyzstan Parliament to grant him control of parts of the Interior Ministry that govern the nation's police agencies. Kulov alleges that a recent crime wave, including the murders of three members of parliament, is due to ineffective law enforcement by the courts, prosecutors, and the state [...]

The Moscow City Court has announced that it will hear an appeal from former Russian nuclear minister Yevgeny Adamov concerning a lower court decision to extend his custody until April 12. Adamov's lawyer has challenged the lower court's decision as excessive and has said he will ask the court to release him on bail. Adamov [...]

The US military on Thursday announced the release of 419 Iraqi detainees , including five women detainees . The decision to release the detainees followed a review by the Combined Review and Release Board , an Iraqi-led panel that includes representatives from the Iraqi Ministries of Human Rights, Justice and Interior and the US military. [...]

Leading Thursday's international brief, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said that he's sending UN Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs Nicolas Michel to Lebanon to assist government officials there in identifying the "nature and scope of the international assistance" needed to create a tribunal charged with trying those accused of killing Prime Minister Hariri and others in [...]