The US Department of Justice on Monday argued in court for the first time that the Bush administration's warrantless domestic surveillance program is legal. Anthony J. Coppolino, special litigation counsel for the DOJ, argued in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan that a lawsuit against the National Security Agency should be [...]

Fourteen of the 17 Canadian men arrested on terror charges , including five teenagers, appeared Monday in the Ontario Court of Justice , where lawyers for some of the adult suspects complained that their clients had been beaten by guards and held in solitary confinement, among other instances of ill treatment. One other suspect will [...]

A court in Indonesia ruled Monday that the country's attorney general must reopen corruption charges against former President Suharto , saying that the charges should not have been dropped, but Attorney General Abdul Rahman Saleh said Monday that he would appeal the decision. Saleh dropped the charges because of the former dictator's poor health , [...]

Spain's National Court said Monday it would investigate allegations that the US Central Intelligence Agency used an airport on the island of Mallorca in its alleged "spider's web" of extraordinary rendition flights to transport terror suspects. The investigation comes in response to a report released last week by the Council of Europe (CoE) , Europe's [...]

UK Attorney General Lord Peter Goldsmith defended the UK's court-martial system Monday, stating that the decision to prosecute four British soldiers for the drowning death of a 15-year old Iraqi boy in 2003 was not politically motivated. Goldsmith conceded that the quality of evidence in the court-martial, which acquitted three of the soldiers last week [...]

Violent crime – consisting of violent murders, robberies and aggravated assaults – increased in 2005 for the first time since 2001, according to the Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation Monday. Murders increased by 23 percent in Houston, 14 percent in Philadelphia and 10 percent in Las Vegas, while [...]

The US Supreme Court handed down decisions in two cases Monday, including Hill v. McDonough , where the Court held that a death row inmate can challenge the constitutionality of a state's method of lethal injection under 42 USC 1983 even when all other appeals have been exhausted. The Court in January granted a stay [...]

The Hamas party , which controls the Palestinian Legislative Council , launched a challenge to a referendum proposed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas , calling an emergency debate Monday on whether a referendum is legal under Palestinian law. Abbas set a date of July 26 for a vote on a "national reconciliation" document , which [...]

Military officials said Sunday that the three Guantanamo Bay detainees who committed suicide Saturday by hanging themselves with bedsheets and clothing – identified as Saudis Mani Shaman Turki al-Habardi Al-Utaybi and Yasser Talal Al-Zahrani, and Yemeni Ali Abdullah Ahmed – took steps to conceal themselves from patrolling guards as they hung themselves in their cells. [...]

An American defense lawyer in the Saddam Hussein trial accused the Iraqi High Tribunal on Monday of not giving the defense team enough time to present their case on behalf of Hussein and his seven co-defendants. Curtis Doebbler criticized Chief Judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman for not responding to defense motions and intimidating defense witnesses, adding that [...]