A judge for the District Court of Western Australia ruled Thursday that a Muslim woman providing testimony before the court will not be allowed to cover her face and body with a niqab . Judge Shauna Deane stated that it would be inappropriate for the woman to be completely veiled because it could affect the [...]

A spokesperson for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) said Wednesday that the court has ordered an independent investigation into allegations that members of the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) intimidated and pressured witnesses in the trial of Vojislav Seselj , a Serbian politician and former president of the Serbian Radical Party [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit on Wednesday ruled that crosses placed beside Utah highways as memorials to deceased Utah Highway Patrol (UHP) troopers is an unconstitutional government endorsement of religion. In 1998, the Utah Highway Patrol Association (UHPA) erected 14 12-foot-high cross memorials displaying the fallen troopers’ name, rank, badge number [...]

A Peruvian judge on Wednesday revoked the parole of Lori Berenson , a US citizen held since 1995 for collaboration with a Marxist rebel organization. Berenson was granted parole in May after serving 14 years of her 20-year sentence with the judge citing good behavior, renunciation of violence and completion of rehabilitation. Judges for the [...]

The Colombian Constitutional Court announced Tuesday the suspension of a base agreement between the US and Colombia, stating the agreement must receive congressional approval before it can legally take effect. The agreement, negotiated between the two countries during the administration of former-Colombian president Alvaro Uribe , allows the US military to have access to seven [...]

The Bangladesh Ministry of Home Affairs announced Wednesday that it will release almost 1,000 prisoners in an effort to resolve the issue of overcrowding throughout the nation’s jails. Most Bangladeshi jails currently house three times their designed capacity. Women’s facilities are the most affected by the overcrowding, with some facilities accommodating four times the allotted [...]

German federal prosecutors announced Wednesday that they have charged a former Rwandan mayor with genocide relating to his involvement in the 1994 Rwandan genocide . According to prosecutors, Onesphore Rwabukombe allegedly coordinated three massacres in which more than 3,700 Tutsis, who had sought refuge in a church, were killed. Rwabukombe, who was a mayor in [...]

A three-judge panel for the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled Tuesday that foreign diplomatic missions are not required to pay property taxes on real property used for housing staff and not diplomatic purposes. The ruling overturned judgments against India and Mongolia, which would have required the countries to pay a total [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Tuesday struck down a federal law criminalizing the act of falsely claiming to have received a medal from the US military. Xavier Alvarez was convicted under the Stolen Valor Act in 2007 after he announced at a public water district board meeting that he was [...]

A judge for the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on Tuesday dismissed piracy charges against six Somali men accused of involvement in the April attack on the USS Ashland in the Gulf of Aden. During the attack on the Ashland, the defendants allegedly fired on the vessel but did not board [...]