In a statement circulated Monday, jailed former Yukos Oil CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky said that the auction sale of Yukos' main Yuganskneftegaz production arm to little-known Baikal Finance Group Sunday had "destroyed" the company and had given the Russian authorities a "wonderful Christmas present." Khordorkovsky is currently on trial in Moscow for tax fraud (official trial [...]

Lawyers representing former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, now held by the US in Iraq and expected to be tried for war crimes, have relayed a message from him calling on Iraqis to unite. Ziad Khasawneh, a Jordanian lawyer who is spokesman for his defence team, told reporters Sunday that the former dictator "urged the unity [...]

An Islamic militant on trial for treason Monday before a Turkish court denied involvement in a 1998 plan to crash an airplane into the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, expected to be crowded with visitors on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of his founding of the Turkish secular state. Metin Kaplan (BBC profile here), [...]

In re: Yukos Oil, United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Judge Nancy Atlas, December 19, 2004 . Read the full transcript of the bench ruling here . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

A senior British barrister with high security clearance to represent detainees before the UK Special Immigration Appeals Commission which tries terror suspects said Sunday that he would resign following a House of Lords ruling Thursday which had found the British legislation on indefinite detention of foreign terror suspects to be unlawful. In the letter to [...]

AP is reporting that the Russian government Sunday auctioned the core production unit of oil giant Yukos to Russian group Baikalfinansgroup for $9.3 billion in defiance of a US bankruptcy court injunction issued Thursday and upheld on appeal from potential Russian auction bidder Gazprom late Saturday. AP has more on the Saturday appeal here. 10:38 [...]

Former Chilean president General Augusto Pinochet was admited to Santiago's Military Hospital hospital Saturday for treatment for a suspected stroke, one day after a Chilean appeals court delayed a decision on an indictment and house arrest order against him. AP has more. From Santiago, El Mercurio has local coverage in Spanish. JURIST has ongoing coverage [...]

Doug Berman, Moritz College of Law, Ohio State University: "The ruling by the Kansas Supreme Court yesterday in Marsh declaring the state's death penalty procedures unconstitutional (basics here) is yet another piece of evidence suggesting that the death penalty is now dying a slow death in the US. (For more on the Marsh ruling, here [...]

Iraqi judges Saturday began investigative pre-trial hearings for Sultan Hashim Ahmad, Saddam Hussein's last defense chief, and Ali Hassan al-Majid (Chemical Ali), another former defense minister. Saddam and eleven of his deputies face prosecution for alleged crimes during Saddam's three-decade rule. Today's hearings before a panel of investigative judges set up by the Iraqi Special [...]

Bosnian Foreign Minister, Mladen Ivanic, stepped down Saturday, one day after Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Dragan Mikerevic resigned. Ivanic, also a Serb, cited new international sanctions against the Bosnian Serbs for their lack of cooperation in solving war crimes as the reason for his resignation. The International High Representative in Bosnia, Paddy Ashdown, and the [...]