UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions Philip Alston said Friday he is planning an official visit to the US to investigate allegations of unlawful killings by US military and non-military actors in Iraq and Afghanistan. Incidents like the killings of Iraqi civilians in Haditha , prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, and civilian deaths caused by [...]

Iraqi prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon defended the death sentence for convicted Saddam Hussein-era defense minister Sultan Hashim al-Tai Friday, saying that al-Tai personally oversaw the deaths of 180,000 people during brutal military campaigns against Iraq's Kurds in late 1980's and that his use of chemical weapons and his in-court confession of involvement in the planning of [...]

The US Army Board for Correction of Military Records ruled Friday that a group of African-American soldiers court-martialed in 1944 for rioting and attacking Italian POWs held at at Seattle's Fort Lawton should have their convictions overturned. One Italian POW, Guglielmo Olivotto, was found hanged in the woods the morning after the riots. The ruling [...]

Myanmar's military junta has announced the release of 87 people held in the wake of the government's crackdown against protesters and political dissidents which began in August. The released prisoners include more than 50 members of the National League for Democracy, the pro-democracy political party led by Aung San Suu Kyi . The announcement follows [...]

International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said Friday that Serbia must do more to apprehend fugitive war crimes suspects before she can give a positive report on the country's work with the ICTY to the European Union. Del Ponte has long criticized Serbia for its seeming reluctance to [...]

Former Illinois Governor George Ryan was ordered Friday to begin serving a 6 1/2 prison sentence in less than two weeks. US District Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer set November 7 as the surrender date for Ryan to report to prison. The order follows the US Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals' refusal to review an August [...]

Italy's highest court of appeal, the Court of Cassation , upheld a verdict Friday clearing former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of charges that he bribed judges to prevent the sale of food company SME to rivals in 1985. Italian law allows both prosecutors and defendants to appeal twice against sentences. Friday's decision follows the [...]

Embezzlement charges against the widow and five sons of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet originally indicted with 17 others on October 4 were dropped by a Chilean appeals court Friday. Charges against a spokesman and several advisers to Pinochet were also dropped. The charges stemmed from allegations that Pinochet was embezzling 25 million dollars to [...]

The UK High Court Friday heard arguments in a case that alleges British troops tortured ten Iraqi detainees in Basra in 2003. The nine plaintiffs and a tenth man were arrested in a Basra hotel where British troops found weapons and suspected bomb-making materials. Later, the tenth detainee, Baha Mousa , died while in custody, [...]

Internet VoIP provider Vonage Holding Corp. on Thursday settled a patent lawsuit against it brought by Verizon Communications for up to $120 million. The exact amount of damages Vonage will have to pay Verizon hinges upon whether the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit agrees to hear an appeal of an earlier federal [...]