US Navy Lt. Cmdr. Matthew M. Diaz, a former staff judge advocate stationed at Guantanamo Bay , was sentenced Friday to six months in prison and is to be dismissed from the US Navy for leaking detainee names to a human rights lawyer. Diaz was convicted at a court-martial Thursday of one count of communicating [...]

Spanish National Court prosecutors Friday appealed investigating magistrate Santiago Pedraz's indictment of three US soldiers with homicide and "a crime against the international community" in the 2004 death in Iraq of cameraman Jose Couso , saying that soldiers did not commit a crime because the death was an "accident of war." Sgt. Shawn Gibson, Capt. [...]

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) has filed a lawsuit on behalf of 16 lawyers who once represented Guantanamo Bay detainees to force US government agencies to turn over recordings allegedly made of the lawyers while meeting with their clients. The CCR filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit in the US District Court [...]

Ben Davis : "I recognize that we are in a moment in which we are desperately looking for (present or former) legal heroes in Justice, but while the Ashcroft hospital bed story makes great cinema – there are no great legal heroes here. Might I say that those who attempted to block extralegal conduct under [...]

Head of the Ukrainian presidential secretariat Viktor Baloha said Friday that the Constitutional Court of Ukraine has lost its authority with Thursday's appointment of Valeri Pshenischny as chief justice after former Chief Justice Ivan Dombrovsky abruptly resigned Thursday. The 18-judge court made the replacement appointment while continuing deliberations over the constitutionality of Ukrainian President Viktor [...]

Convicted terrorist and California resident Hamid Hayat was denied a new trial Thursday, when a federal judge rejected his claims that the jury foreman engaged in misconduct and made prejudicial statements. Judge Garland E. Burell Jr. of the US Eastern District of California rejected testimony by one juror that the jury foreman continuously made "hangman" [...]

The US Department of Defense (DOD) has the right to decide which issues it will negotiate with labor unions, according to a Friday decision by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit . The court held that Congress granted to the DOD "expansive authority to curtail collective bargaining through November 2009" [...]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other European Union (EU) leaders criticized Russia's human rights record in a series of exchanges at a press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin Friday, marking the end of a summit between the EU and Russia. Merkel, speaking to reporters, raised concerns about Russia's democratic freedoms with reports that Russian [...]

Kazakhstan's parliament removed term limits on the rule of President Nursultan Nazarbayev Friday, effectively allowing him to remain president for life. The measure only applies to Nazarbayev, and subsequent presidents would have to abide by the law limiting them to two terms in office. Another constitutional change, supported by Nazarbayev , reduced the length of [...]

The White House reiterated President Bush's "full confidence" in embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales at Friday morning's press gaggle . White House spokesman Tony Fratto said that the administration considers next week's proposed Senate vote of no-confidence in Gonzales a political stunt, and that Gonzales can continue to serve without the support of Congress. Fratto's [...]