Swedish prosecutor Christer Van der Kwast will investigate several well-known Swedish companies, including the bus and truck manufacturer Volvo and tool manufacturer Atlas Copco , for allegedly making payments to the Iraqi government in exchange for favorable oil-for-food bargains, according to a report Tuesday from Radio Sweden. Van der Kwast plans on investigating every company [...]

The Wyoming Supreme Court has ruled in State v. McAuliffe , where the court upheld by a 4-1 vote the constitutionality of probation orders allowing police to randomly search the subject of the order. The decision relied heavily on the Supreme Court's 2001 unanimous decision in United States v. Knights , where the Court held [...]

Peru formally requested the extradition of former president Alberto Fujimori from Chile Tuesday so that he can face 12 charges including authorizing an illegal death squad, abuse of power and corruption. The extradition request follows a failed attempt by Peruvian prosecutors to request extradition. Peru's Supreme Court refused to authorize the first request because prosecutors [...]

Turkish state prosecutors charged nine journalists and human rights activists with promoting the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) Monday. According to the indictment, the defendants used a Reuters reporter's observation of a PKK handover of an abducted soldier to representatives of a human rights group to create propaganda in support of the Kurdish separatists. The reporter, [...]

According to records released by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation , 44 convicts out of a total California prison population of 164,000 committed suicide during 2005, an increase from 26 in 2004 and 36 in 2003, the previous record. Attorneys have confirmed only 41 of the suicides reported; using this number, California's inmate [...]

Indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff has agreed to plead guilty to two of six fraud charges and to assist federal prosecutors with any ongoing investigations in exchange for a more favorable sentence, Abramoff's lawyers said Tuesday. Abramoff was indicted in August for allegedly faking a wire transfer that defrauded two lenders of $60 million during the [...]

Ugandan opposition leader and presidential challenger Dr. Kizza Besigye , released on bail by the Ugandan High Court Monday, has declared that President Yoweri Museveni should face charges for treason committed during the 1998-2003 war between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In a ruling issued last month, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) [...]

As expected , the French Government on Tuesday officially declared an end to the state of emergency implemented in November to quell riots that tore through the country late last year. Few French towns actually utilized the increased police powers authorized by the state of emergency, including the ability to set and enforce curfews and [...]

Issam Ghazzawi, a defense lawyer for Saddam Hussein , said Tuesday that Hussein, on trial for his involvement in the 1982 Dujail massacre , would prefer to die by firing squad rather than hanging if he is sentenced to death, which is possible under the rules of the Iraqi High Criminal Court (formerly the Iraqi [...]

Former Bosnian Serb general and indicted war criminal Radko Mladic , who is wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on genocide charges, had access to his army general's pension until mid-November 2005, according to Serbian ministers speaking to the press Tuesday. Mladic's wife and son, as well as two other Serbian [...]