A judge in Chile accused former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet on Friday of having false passports just days after he was placed under house arrest for human rights charges. Special judge Sergio Munoz made the accusation in a court filing but did not say how Pinochet obtained the passports were obtained or whether they were [...]

Afghan authorities have arrested an Afghan supreme court judge in connection with an August car bomb attack that killed ten people, including three Americans, outside a US security firm in Kabul. Judge Naqibullah, who like many Afghans goes by one name, was arrested after two men accused of organizing the bombing told investigator they had [...]

Army sergeant Tracy Perkins was convicted of assault and battery and obstruction of justice Friday for his role in forcing two men into the Tigris river for violating curfew in January 2004. Acquitted of involuntary manslaughter, he still faces up to 11 1/2 years in prison. Both sides agree that the two men were forced [...]

Speaking Friday in Michigan at the end of a three-day policy campaign dedicated to tort reform, President Bush called for a halt to asbestos lawsuits that he said have bankrupted companies and resulted in dramatic cost and tax increases. Instead he urged Congress to pass legisltion establishing an $140 billion asbestos compensation fund to compensate [...]

Updating a Wednesday announcement on Chief Justice William Rehnquist's return to work part-time, a Supreme Court spokeswoman said Friday that Rehnquist will not preside from the bench Monday when the high court returns from the holiday break. Rehnquist, 80, will be absent due to "continuing secretions caused by his tracheotomy and radiation therapy." The Chief [...]

The US Supreme Court announced Friday that it would hear an appeal brought by the Chicago-based accounting firm Arthur Andersen, previously convicted for obstruction of justice by destroying documents related to the fall of the Enron Corp. Andersen was convicted by a federal jury in June 2002 and was sentenced to a $500,000 fine and [...]

Following up on a report this morning in JURIST's Paper Chase, jury selection came to a close Friday after the seating of a 10-man jury in the military trial of Spc. Charles Graner, named by prosecutors as the ringleader of the alleged prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison. The jury, consisting of four officers and [...]

Reuters is reporting that a US bankruptcy judge has rejected a United Airlines labor deal with pilots which would have saved the struggling airline some $180M per year. The pilots union ratified the deal only yesterday by a vote of 76.8 percent to 23.1 percent. Labor groups has critized the agreement because it imposed a [...]

The Sri Lankan government, concerned at reports of abduction and trafficking of children in the wake of the December 26 tsunami disaster that killed over 30,000 in Sri Lanka alone, has announced that adoption of children is illegal until further notice. A government spokesman made the announcement after a cabinet meeting in the capital, Columbo. [...]

Military prosecutors late Thursday dropped adultery and obstruction of justice charges against US Army Spc. Charles Graner on the eve of Friday's start of jury selection in his court-martial trial in connection with abuses of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. In photos that precipitated an international scandal when they were released early [...]