US to release three more Kuwaiti prisoners from Guantanamo News
US to release three more Kuwaiti prisoners from Guantanamo

[JURIST] The head of a support group for families of Kuwaiti prisoners held by the US at the Guantanamo Bay military prison has said that American authorities have agreed to release five of the remaining eleven Kuwait prisoners held at the facility, but have not yet agreed to a timetable for their transfer. Khalid al-Ouda expressed hope, however, that that would be within a month. Ouda said that meanwhile six of the eleven Kuwait detainees had joined the hunger strike at the prison [JURIST report] now in its second month, and that two had had to be hospitalized after refusing food for five weeks. The other four were "not in good health." The only Kuwaiti detainee released from Guantanamo thusfar is Nasser al-Mutairi, who was transferred to Kuwaiti custody in January [JURIST report] and later cleared by a Kuwait court [JURIST report]. Project Kuwaiti Freedom [advocacy website] offers additional material on the detention and condition of the Kuwaiti detainees. AFP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.