New United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres Monday urged countries to grant asylum to refugees rather than seal borders because of fears of terrorism. His call came at the end of a three-day visit to Kyrgyzstan by assistant high commissioner Kamel Morjane, and one week after that nation announced plans to deport a [...]

US Department of Defense officials Monday released a new policy on responsibilities of military healthcare providers to detainees. The memorandum , circulated internally last week , reaffirms standards similar to those used in US federal prisons, indicating that military healthcare personnel have a duty to protect the physical and mental health of detainees, and establishes [...]

Leading Monday's corporations and securities law news, the SEC is investigating IBM , the company announced today. In a press release, IBM said that it received a request to voluntarily comply with the SEC's informal investigation. The inquiry is related to IBM's first-quarter report and how it disclosed methods of expensing employee equity compensation. AP [...]

Six Pakistanis formerly held at Guantanamo Bay told reporters Monday after their release from subsequent detention in a Pakistani prison in Lahore that US personnel at the camp had abused the Koran in their presence. After being greeted by their families the men alleged that American interrogators threw, tore, and otherwise desecrated the holy book [...]

Leading Monday's states brief, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled today that allowing jurors to submit questions to witnesses is not a per se violation of a defendant's right to a fair trial in criminal cases. One defendant's attorney argued that the threat of unfair questions from the jurors should be reason to bar the practice [...]

Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdulmahdi told local leaders in the southern Iraqi province of Nassriya on Monday that some countries are pressing for a delay in the trial of Saddam Hussein. He did not specific which countries, but Iraq's justice minister has previously accused the US of stalling the trial because it has "secrets" to [...]

A Turkish prosecutor has asked for life sentences for four alleged conspirators in the November 2003 bombings in Istanbul that killed 61 people and wounded hundreds more. The trial actually encompasses 71 defendants; in addition to the four life sentences, prosecutor Zekeriya Oz asked the court for sentences ranging from 1 to 22.5 years for [...]

An Italian judicial source told Reuters Monday that Italy plans to formally seek the extradition of 13 agents working for the CIA for their alleged role in the 2003 seizure and deportation from Italy of Egyptian imam Abu Omar . The same source said Italy might put out a general international arrest warrant for the [...]

The Iraqi Special Tribunal has questioned former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz . The urbane onetime Iraqi foreign minister, the only Christian in the Iraqi leadership and often the global media face of Saddam Hussein's government, was shown in court footage released Monday, in which he was asked about correspondence with Hussein discussing the [...]

Mississippi Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon Monday denied a request for a new trial by lawyers for Edgar Ray Killen . Last week Killen was convicted of manslaughter for the 1964 killing of three civil rights workers in Mississippi and sentenced to 60 years in jail . His lawyers argued that the trial was for murder [...]