Iraqi Deputy Interior Minister Hussein Ali Kamal said Saturday that the Iraqi government will step up security measures for the 12 remaining defense lawyers representing Saddam Hussein and his seven co-defendants. The announcement comes two days after Saadoun Sughaiyer al-Janabi, a defense lawyer for co-defendant Awad Hamed al-Bandar, a former chief judge charged with issuing [...]

The son of slain former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri , Saad al-Hariri, has praised the findings of a UN investigation into the February 4 assassination of the former leader and 20 other people in Beirut and called for an international trial to punish those responsible for his murder. The report implicates Syrian officials in [...]

New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller sent an e-mail to staff members Friday, expressing regrets about his handling of Times reporter Judith Miller and her role in the CIA operative leak case . Keller said he missed "warning signals" about Miller's role in the case, and her "entanglement" with Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief [...]

President Bush announced his nomination of Paul J. McNulty to serve as US Deputy Attorney General Friday. McNulty has served as the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia since 2001, prosecuting a number of high-profile terrorism cases, including that of Zacarias Moussaoui. The Senate must confirm McNulty's nomination, but according to administration officials [...]

The Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI) released updated voter turnout statistics for the October 15 Iraqi constitutional referendum Friday, reporting a 63 percent turnout among the country's 15.5 million registered voters. The referendum drew a three-percent higher turnout than the Sunni-boycotted parliamentary elections in January . Official referendum results are expected next week after [...]

The Moscow Bar Association reported Friday that it had found no evidence to disbar three lawyers on the defense team of jailed Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky . On September 23 the Russian Prosecutor General's office requested that eight of Khodorkovsky's lawyers be stripped of their law licenses for dragging out his appeal, allegedly to [...]

Representative Tom DeLay (R-TX) made his first court appearance in state criminal court in Austin Friday since his indictment earlier this month on criminal conspiracy and money laundering charges, but his arraignment has been postponed pending his lawyer's request for a new judge in the case . DeLay defense lawyer Dick DeGuerin noted that Judge [...]

President Bush Friday called for the UN to convene an urgent meeting to consider what he characterized as the "deeply disturbing" findings of the Mehlis report suggesting that the February assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri could not have taken place without Syrian involvement. US ambassador to the UN John Bolton meanwhile called [...]

Members of the defense team for Saddam Hussein demanded Friday that his trial be delayed or moved outside of Iraq after the body of a kidnapped defense lawyer for one of Hussein's co-defendants was found Friday. The lawyers called for the trial to be postponed past November 28 , the scheduled date for the trial [...]

In Friday's environmental law news, Wisconsin state legislators held a public hearing before a joint meeting of the Assembly and Senate Judiciary Committees Thursday to discuss a bill that would require plaintiffs in manufacturer liability cases to prove a specific product caused their injuries and was made or marketed by the defendant company in order [...]