Lawmakers in the Turkish parliament Wednesday discussed a bill that would label the killings of Algerians by France during the colonial period as genocide and make it illegal to deny that the French were responsible for the killings. The parliament's Justice Committee nonetheless concluded that there was little support for the bill and deferred it [...]

A nephew of former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat who is now an Egyptian opposition MP associated with the Ahrar party appeared before an Egyptian military court Wednesday on charges of making defamatory remarks regarding the 1981 assassination of his uncle. Last week, Talaat Sadat remarked that senior military officials and the president's bodyguards were involved [...]

A federal grand jury on Wednesday indicted Adam Gadahn , a US citizen accused of aiding al Qaeda, on charges of treason and providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization. The indictment marks the first treason charges to be brought against a US citizen in over half a century. The DOJ alleges that Gadahn [...]

The Supreme Court of India Wednesday ruled that the power of the country's president to pardon a person convicted of a capital offense in Article 72 of the Indian Constitution is subject to judicial review in the face of "extraneous consideration" such as caste or religious or political affiliation. The decision stems from the case [...]

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in Cunningham v. California , 05-6551, a case that asks justices to decide whether judges can exercise discretion to tack on additional years to prison sentences beyond that determined by a jury without violating a defendant's right to a jury trial. Cunningham, a former California police officer, [...]

Ben Davis : "Lawyers for Jose Padilla recently (October 4) filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida a Motion to Dismiss for Outrageous Government Conduct . The motion recites, from the point of view of Jose Padilla, his detention at the US Navy Brig in Charleston, South Carolina. If [...]

Saddam Hussein returned to court Wednesday and questioned the chief judge presiding over his genocide trial as to why he has not been allowed to speak and defend himself during prior court sessions, saying it was a judge's "duty" to listen. Chief Judge Mohammed Oreibi al-Khalifa cut off Hussein's microphone and subsequently threw him out [...]

The Iraqi National Assembly Wednesday approved a measure that outlines how federalism could be implemented to divide Iraq into separate regions. The law is backed by Shiite majority leaders, but opposed by Sunnis who fear that splitting areas of Iraq would cause a civil war by increasing the sectarian and ethnic violence already troubling the [...]

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Wednesday denied a request by the Croatian government to intervene as amicus curiae in the trial of six former political and military Bosnian Croat leaders who are accused of torturing, killing, imprisoning, and expelling Muslims in Bosnia during 1991-94. The Croatian government had sought permission to [...]

The Law Lords , the judicial panel of the UK House of Lords that is Britain's highest court, ruled Wednesday that media in Britain should not be subject to libel charges if they publish allegations against public figures as long as they act responsibly and in the public interest. The case was an appeal brought [...]