US soldiers taunted detainees at Guantanamo Bay with pictures of Saddam Hussein's hanging in "an attempt to intimidate and compel submission under a threat of death and mentally torture," according to comments made Thursday by a defense lawyer for Australian Guantanamo detainee David Hicks . After visiting Hicks at at the detention facility, US defense [...]

A federal judge Wednesday reduced a $2.5 million punitive damage award to $1 million in a Hurricane Katrina insurance case, finding the award excessive at twelve times the amount of economic damages awarded. US District Judge L.T. Senter issued a direct verdict against State Farm in January holding the insurance company liable for the policy [...]

A Spanish judge on Wednesday ordered the National Intelligence Center , Spain's state intelligence agency to declassify any documents it has about secret CIA extraordinary rendition flights . The order comes in Judge Ismael Moreno's investigation of whether CIA rendition flights stopped at Spanish airports before transferring terrorism suspects to countries where they could be [...]

Sudanese Justice Minister Mohammed Ali al-Mardi said Wednesday that the Sudanese government can do a better job prosecuting war crimes in Darfur than the International Criminal Court (ICC) . In an interview with AP, al-Mardi reiterated Sudan's position that they country is "willing and able to try all perpetrators of offenses in Darfur" and that [...]

A federal district judge on Wednesday vacated the conviction of former Enron CFO Kevin Howard in light of an August 2006 opinion by the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that overturned separate Enron convictions "on the legal ground that the government's theory of fraud relating to the deprivation of honest services … [...]

Class action representatives Jennifer Gratz and Patrick Hamacher have settled their suit challenging the former affirmative action policies of the University of Michigan after a district judge on Wednesday issued an order approved the settlement terms, decertified the class, and dismissed the case. The university will pay $10,000 to Gratz and Hamacher to settle all [...]

US District Judge Reggie Walton on Wednesday denied several motions challenging the ongoing detentions of 16 Guantanamo Bay detainees, ruling that until the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit decides whether civilian judges may hear cases under the 2006 Military Commissions Act (MCA) , he is without jurisdiction to consider the motions. Walton [...]

The European Union has agreed to adopt a "measured, step-by-step approach" to achieving a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty, according to German Minister of State Gunter Gloser, addressing the European Parliament on Wednesday. The EU adopted an advocacy stance on the issue in 1998 after the signing of the Guidelines to EU policy towards [...]

The Venezuelan legislature unanimously approved a bill Wednesday granting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez authority to enact laws by presidential decree without legislative approval for the next 18 months. The same measure received initial approval by the Venezuelan National Assembly last week. Since winning his third re-election last December, Chavez has called for "revolutionary laws" to [...]

US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Wednesday that the Justice Department will turn over to the Senate Judiciary Committee the text of an order, granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) , authorizing government surveillance of transmissions coming into or going outside of the country where one party was suspected of association with a [...]