Lawyers for the three Guantanamo Bay detainees who committed suicide have questioned why it took the US military Wednesday three days to notify them of their clients' deaths, saying the delay caused unnecessary distress for the detainees' families. The lawyers also said the failure to notify counsel of the suicides suggests that the military has [...]

Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi is calling for a renewed effort to pass the European constitution after next year's French elections. Prodi spoke in Vienna on Tuesday during a meeting with Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schussel to kick off a tour of EU capitals. The constitution is on hold indefinitely after France and the Netherlands rejected [...]

A lawyer for a Guantanamo Bay detainee who was formally cleared of terror charges said Wednesday that the US State Department is speaking with the Canadian government to secure his client's release to that country. Canada would have to issue a minister's permit under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to either allow the detainee [...]

The UK law lords ruled Wednesday that three British men and one Canadian man who claim to have been tortured in Saudi Arabian jails after confessing to participating in a series of terrorist bombings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2000 and 2001 cannot sue Saudi officials responsible for their imprisonment in British courts because the [...]

A French court on Wednesday convicted 24 Muslim defendants of "criminal association in relation with a terrorist enterprise" for helping terrorist combatants in Chechnya and for planning an attack to take place in Paris. Another defendant was convicted of using forged papers, and two were acquitted. Prosecutors brought the criminal association charge against the Paris-area [...]

Amnesty International on Wednesday accused European states of being "partners in crime" with the United States in the alleged circuit of CIA rendition flights transporting terror suspects to third countries known to use torture. The human rights group, in an open letter addressed to the Council of the European Union in advance of a Thursday [...]

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Wednesday that the country was "extremely disappointed" and "distressed" at the release from prison of Abu Bakar Bashir , the Indonesian Muslim cleric jailed in connection to the 2002 Bali bombings . Bashir was released Wednesday after serving 26 months in prison following his conviction on conspiracy charges . [...]

The United Nations on Wednesday renewed its calls for the US to immediately close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay in the wake of three detainee suicides last weekend, saying the suicides were predictable because of the conditions there. In a statement issued Wednesday, five UN human rights experts who have been monitoring events at [...]

Government Response to Memorandum of Amicus Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the US House of Representatives on a Motion for Return of Property filed by Rep. William Jefferson, US Department of Justice, June 13, 2006 . Read the full text of the response .

The US Department of Defense has rejected a demand by Amnesty International for an independent investigation into last weekend's three detainee suicides at the Guantanamo Bay detention center. A Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday that no independent probe was needed and maintained that the military would investigate the deaths itself. Military officials have also asserted that [...]