The UN Committee against Torture said Friday it was concerned about ill-treatment and torture of detainees by Uzbekistan law enforcement officials. The committee issued a report concluding a three-week meeting in Geneva where it reviewed the compliance of six countries with the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment [...]

Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak was charged Friday with fraud and attempting to embezzle $43.3 million in state funds, according to his lawyer. After an initial investigation the Russian Prosecutor General's Office accused Storchak of working with Sodexim head Viktor Zakharov and Interregional Investment Bank chairman Vadim Volkov to take funds from a Russian [...]

French prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin has dismissed a war crimes claim against former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld alleging that Rumsfeld authorized US personnel to torture prisoners in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, according to a lawyer for the Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH) on Friday. The complaint was filed in October on [...]

Constitution Petition Nos. 87 and 88 of 2007, Supreme Court of Pakistan, November 23, 2007 . Read the full text of the judgment. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Lebanon slid into constitutional crisis Friday as pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud purported to declare a "state of emergency" and hand security responsibility to the army in a vaguely worded statement issued just before leaving office midnight at the end of his term without an elected successor in place. Earlier Friday, anti-Syrian and pro-Syrian factions in [...]

Former Lord Chief Justice Lord Woolf Friday denounced the UK government's latest proposal to extend beyond 28 days the time that terror suspects can be held without charge, supporting positions taken by other current and former top legal officials earlier in the week. On Wednesday current Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald and former Attorney [...]

An International Criminal Court prosecutor said Thursday that the court would not withdraw controversial indictments against leaders of Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) . Alluding to a call for a review of the charges by the Ugandan government, ICC Deputy Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda was quoted by AFP as saying that "this idea of 'because we [...]

UN Special Rapporteur on torture Manfred Nowak Friday called on the government of Indonesia to step up efforts at stopping ill-treatment and torture of individuals under police detention. Nowak concluded a two-week visit to the country where he toured various correctional facilities, meeting with government officials and NGOs to make recommendations regarding the legal system's [...]

Courthouses in the northern Indian cities of Lucknow, Varanasi, and Faizabad were hit Friday with bombings that killed at least 13 lawyers and injured over 50 other people. The blasts occurred in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh , where lawyers decided earlier this year not to defend terrorist suspects. Indian authorities say they suspect [...]

The Supreme Court of Pakistan Friday upheld President Pervez Musharraf's November 3 Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) and accompanying proclamation of emergency. The seven member bench of the court ruling on the issue – made up entirely of judges named to their posts after the emergency decree – additionally condemned the "judicial activism" of the superior [...]