South African President Thabo Mbeki suspended National Prosecuting Authority chief Vusi Pikoli Monday, citing a strained relationship between Pikoli and his superior, Minister of Justice Bridget Mabandla , as the primary motive for the suspension. Pikoli was appointed to lead an elite corruption fighting agency in 2005, but last May complained before parliament of attacks [...]

Former Argentinean military officer Ernesto Guillermo Barreiro has been sentenced in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to six months in jail for one count of visa fraud, US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said Monday. According to ICE, he will likely be deported to Argentina when his US sentence is [...]

Indonesian prosecutors began court proceedings Monday against former Indonesian President Haji Mohammad Suharto , bringing the government's civil corruption lawsuit against Suharto for allegedly embezzling $440 million between 1974 and 1998 from the Yayasan Supersemar , a state-funded academic scholarship fund. The court proceedings began after prosecutors for the government failed to reach a settlement [...]

The American Bar Association death penalty assessment team has recommended a moratorium on the death penalty in Ohio, in a report released Monday that cited major flaws in the state's administration of capital punishment . The assessment team, composed of Ohio lawmakers, judges, and law professors, studied the state's death penalty system for approximately 30 [...]

Violent crime in the US has increased for the second year in a row, according to the 2006 Crime in the United States report released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation Monday. The FBI reported that violent crime rose by 1.9 percent in 2006, with the homicide rate increasing 1.8 percent and the number of [...]

US federal judges have expressed concern about the salary gap between federal judges and lawyers in the private sector, saying that judges are resigning in greater numbers than ever before due to inadequate pay, USA Today reported Monday. According to the Federal Judicial Pay Increase Fact Sheet from the Administrative Office of the United States [...]

The military government in Myanmar on Monday threatened to punish the thousands of monks who have been leading protests against the government . The monks are protesting rights abuses by the government, including the detention of demonstrators who peacefully protested a sharp rise in fuel prices in August. Tens of thousands of citizens have joined [...]

Saddam Hussein's cousin and former Iraqi defense minister Ali Hassan al-Majid , also known as Chemical Ali, ordered the execution of 25 villagers at a time as he crushed a Shi'a uprising in southern Iraq following the 1991 Persian Gulf War, according to testimony Monday in the crimes against humanity trial ongoing at the Iraqi [...]

Evaluating Fairness and Accuracy in State Death Penalty Systems: The Ohio Death Penalty Assessment Report, An analysis of Ohio's Death Penalty Laws, Procedures, and Practices. American Bar Association, September 24, 2007 . Read the full text of the report . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

A group of experts presented an interim report to the United Nations Human Rights Council on the situation in Darfur Monday, citing continued human rights violations. The report noted that the government of Sudan demonstrated cooperation during the period under review and has partially implemented some recommendations. Since other recommendations remain without implementation, the group [...]