Former Saddam officials released from jail in Iraq News
Former Saddam officials released from jail in Iraq

[JURIST] At least 24 former officials from the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein [JURIST news archive] have been released from jail, an Iraqi lawyer said Monday. The former officials released include Rihab Taha [BBC report], the biological weapons expert known as "Dr. Germ", and Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash [BBC profile], better known as "Mrs. Anthrax". Iraqi lawyer Badee Izzat Aref said the decision to release the officials was a US-Iraqi decision and was in line with a December 2004 Iraqi government ruling, which was not enforced until now in an effort to ease political pressures before the country's elections [JURIST news archive]. Aref said that some of the former detainees have already left Iraq due to security concerns. US military officials in Baghdad have confirmed that eight people, previously designated as high-value detainees, were released over the weekend after a board found that they no longer posed a security threat and that no charges would be filed. AP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Ku Klux Klan founded

The US hate group known as the Ku Klux Klan was founded on December 24, 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee as a reaction to reconstruction efforts following the Union victory in the American Civil War. The group would later become notorious for its attacks on Black Americans, being targeted by the Enforcement Act of 1871, which imposed civil and criminal liability for deprivation of constitutional rights. Read the Enforcement Act of 1871.  

Hamid Karzai born

On December 24, 1957, Hamid Karzai was born in Karz, Afghanistan. He would go on to become in 2004 his country's first elected president after the end of Taliban rule in 2001.