Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was granted bail on Monday after seven weeks of house arrest on the three remaining charges against him relating to the disappearance and presumed death of dissidents during his 17-year rule. Pinochet was granted bail last week on the six other human rights charges that have so far been leveled [...]

The US Supreme Court heard arguments Monday in Hudson v. Michigan where it will decide whether police officers were justified in entering a plaintiff's home without knocking when they arrived with a warrant to search for drugs. Justices could use this case to make it easier for officers to execute search warrants. They could also [...]

Swiss intelligence agents have been aware of secret CIA prisons in eastern Europe for nearly two months, according to documents leaked to the Swiss newspaper SonntagsBlick . According to SonntagsBlick, Swiss military intelligence agents used satellite listening systems to intercept a fax sent from Cairo to the Egyptian embassy in London, the contents of which [...]

Jury selection began Monday in the trial of Shaaban Hafiz Ahmad Ali Shaaban, an Indiana truck driver accused of offering to sell names of US covert operatives to Saddam Hussein's Iraqi government. Charges against Shaaban laid last March include acting as a foreign agent, violating sanctions against Iraq, conspiracy and witness tampering. Prosecutors claim that [...]

The trial of three former police officers for the murder of prominent Ukraine opposition journalist Heorhiy Gongadze has begun in Kiev. Valeriy Kostenko, Mykola Protasov and Oleksandr Popovych are accused of carrying out the killing in September 2000, but no one has yet been charged with giving the order for the murder. Gongadze was an [...]

The trial of radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri , charged under the UK Terrorism Act 2000 for inciting racial hatred, began in London on Monday. Hamza was arrested last May on a US extradition warrant, and was later charged in the UK on 16 counts, including urging his followers to kill non-Muslims and possessing [...]

Confirmation hearings for US Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel Alito began Monday with Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) promising a "full, fair and dignified hearing," and Senate Democrats vowing to ask tough questions about Alito's stance on abortion, the right of privacy, constitutional powers, and equal rights. The hearings started with opening statements [...]

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Monday denied requests by US Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) that the money laundering charges against him either be dismissed or sent back to a lower court for an immediate trial. The state's highest criminal court denied the requests two days after DeLay stepped down from his post as [...]

The lower house of Jordan's parliament on Sunday approved an agreement with the US which will prohibit the country from handing over Americans accused of violating international criminal law to the International Criminal Court (ICC) . The decision was met with intense opposition by the Islamic Action Front , Jordan's largest political party, and human [...]

The lower house of Jordan's parliament on Sunday approved an agreement with the US which will prohibit the country from handing over Americans accused of violating international criminal law to the International Criminal Court (ICC) . The decision was met with intense opposition by the Islamic Action Front , Jordan's largest political party, and human [...]