A US federal judge Thursday sentenced former South Korean lobbyist Tongsun Park to five years in prison for his conviction on charges of money laundering, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and acting as an unregistered agent of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. Prosecutors accused Park of receiving about $2 million from Hussein in exchange for [...]

Authorities in Colombia Thursday arrested a former intelligence chief on charges of murder and conspiracy for allegedly contracting with illegal paramilitary groups to assassinate political opponents, including human rights activists and union leaders. Jorge Noguera ran the Department of Administrative Security until he resigned in October 2005 after he was tape-recorded while discussing plans to [...]

Indonesia has convicted and jailed at least 18 people for advocating a sovereign government for the province of Papua , according to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report released Wednesday. The report states: Although political space for dissent in Indonesia has increased enormously since the fall of Soeharto, broadly worded laws limiting freedom of expression [...]

Alleged terrorist Jose Padilla is unfit to stand trial, forensic neuropsychiatrist Dr. Angela Hegarty testified at a court ordered competency hearing Thursday. Hegarty testified that she determined from 22 hours of interviews and tests with him that Padilla is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder from his years in detention and is unable to assist in [...]

Egyptian blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil was sentenced to four years in prison Thursday on charges of insulting Islam and causing sectarian strife in his blog . Nabil, a 22-year-old former law student, had posted on the internet statements critical of Islamic authorities and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak , calling him a dictator. Nabil also allegedly [...]

Jailed Chinese newspaper ex-editor Yu Huafeng has had his eight-year sentence reduced by one year, according to Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao Daily News on Thursday. Huafeng and his colleague Li Minying were both convicted in 2004 for embezzlement, bribery and corruption. Both men claimed the money in question was obtained legally and used for [...]

Speaking publicly for the first time, Muslim cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr said Thursday that he was tortured by Egyptian officials during his four-year detention in Egypt following an alleged 2003 kidnapping and extraordinary rendition from Milan. Nasr, who has been at the heart of Italian judicial proceedings against US and Italian intelligence agents implicated [...]

The Enron shareholder derivative lawsuit will be tried in April as previously scheduled, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. US District Judge Melinda Harmon denied a motion filed by defendants Merrill Lynch and Co. Inc. and Credit Suisse Group to delay the trial pending the outcome of an appeal to the US Fifth Circuit Court of [...]

The Philippines will investigate and eventually prosecute those responsible for extra-judicial killings, President Gloria Arroyo said Wednesday, one day after a visiting UN official released a report revealing a high number of such killings. On Tuesday, UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions Philip Alston reported that his ten-day investigation showed that the [...]

Former Sierra Leone Defense Minister Sam Hinga Norman died of heart failure Thursday, several weeks before a verdict was due in his war crimes trial before the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) , the Court announced Thursday. Norman, who passed away in a military hospital in Dakar, Senegal after being transferred there for medical [...]