Alabama Death Penalty Assessment Report, American Bar Association, June 11, 2006 . Read the full text of the report . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

The suicides of three detainees , two Saudis and a Yemeni, at Guantanamo Bay on Saturday prompted Saudi Interior Ministry officials to renew calls on Sunday for all Saudi prisoners to be released from the military camp and returned to Saudi Arabia where they can face charges. The US, which freed 15 Saudis from Guantanamo [...]

US Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) said on Sunday that he plans to demand hearings and issue subpoenas for telephone company executives to discuss the program of disclosing public calling records to the National Security Agency (NSA) if the White House fails to cooperate with Congress in devising rules for domestic surveillance . [...]

The American Bar Association death penalty assessment team recommended a moratorium on the death penalty in Alabama in a report released Sunday that cited major flaws in the state's administration of capital punishment . The assessment team, composed of Alabama lawyers who are both prosecutors and defense attorneys, studied the state's death penalty system for [...]

US Marine Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich , commander of the platoon implicated in the deaths of two dozen Iraqi civilians in Haditha , told his attorney that his unit followed the rules of engagement and did not purposefully attack civilians, the Washington Post reported Sunday. Wuterich contends that his platoon entered houses in pursuit of [...]

Dozens of Iraqi detainees were released Sunday as part of a national reconciliation plan announced by new Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki last week. Maliki promised that 2,500 prisoners held in US detention facilities and Iraqi custody would be released if the detainees "are not Saddam Hussein loyalists or terrorists or anyone who has Iraqi [...]

Parliament members in Nepal voted late Saturday to strip King Gyanendra of his power to veto laws passed by the legislature. The new law is the latest in a series of moves to strip Gyanendra of the wide-ranging powers he held before three weeks of pro-democracy protests in April forced the king to reinstate parliament [...]

Fourth report of the International Independent Investigation Commission established pursuant to Security Council resolutions 1595 (2005) and 1636 (2005), June 10, 2006 . Read the full text of the report . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Serge Brammertz , deputy prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and head of the UN International Independent Investigation Commission probing the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri , delivered the panel's latest report to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Saturday and noted that Syria's cooperation with the probe has been "generally [...]

The US Army has announced that three as-yet-unidentified Guantanamo detainees died early this morning local time in apparent multiple suicides. An official investigation is already underway. These are the first suicides confirmed among prisoners at Guantanamo Bay since the facility housing US terror suspects at the naval station there was opened in 2002. A US [...]