A ban on assault weapons in the city of Denver was affirmed by operation of law on Monday when the Colorado Supreme Court deadlocked in a 3-3 vote with one judge abstaining on whether to overturn the decisions in two lower court cases that had upheld the ban. The state enacted two …
A lawyer for terror suspect Jose Padilla has filed a motion to suppress evidence he claims the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) obtained illegally from two sources, one which alleges torture after US rendition to Morocco and another who may have been heavily medicated during interrogation. According to the …
Allegations that members of the US military killed civilians in Iraq should be investigated by the United Nations and an Iraqi-US committee, Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi said Monday. Al-Hashimi, a Sunni, described the allegations, along with the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, as part of a pattern of human …
President Bush Monday denounced "activist judges" who have struck down state laws banning same-sex marriage as he urged Congress to approve the so-called Marriage Protection Amendment defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. At a White House event, Bush said: Some argue that defining marriage should be left to …
Serbian members of parliament declared Serbia a sovereign nation Monday, two days after the parliament of Montenegro proclaimed its own independence from the former Serbia-Montenegro union. The breakup marks the final dissolution of what remained of the post-WWII Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, now divided into six successor states (the others being Bosnia …
The US Supreme Court on Monday granted certiorari in a case that will decide how much public schools can consider race in public school admissions assignments. The Court will hear appeals in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District, and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education. In Parents, the Ninth Circuit upheld …
A Baghdad court has convicted one man but acquitted two others in connection with the abduction and murder of Margaret Hassan, the Irish-born aid worker kidnapped in Iraq in 2004. Mustafa Salman, charged with aiding and abetting the kidnappers after Hassan's purse and identification papers were found in his home, was sentenced to life in …
Several activist groups have sued the attorney general of Indonesia for dropping corruption charges against former President Suharto. Attorney General Abdul Rahman Saleh dismissed the charges last month because of the former dictator's health. The lawsuits -- filed by the Indonesian Association of Legal Attorneys and Human Rights Counselors, the Advocacy Team …
The US Defense Department has decided to omit references to common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which bans "cruel treatment and torture" and "humiliating and degrading treatment" of detainees, from the new Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation and accompanying directives, an anonymous military official told the Los Angeles Times. The …
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said Monday that there may be more arrests in the terror investigation that led Friday to the detention and charging of 12 men and five youths suspected of being members of a terrorist cell that planned to attack targets in southern Ontario and Toronto, including - according to Monday's …
The US Supreme Court on Monday ruled that a company cannot bring a claim under s.1962(c) of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) alleging that a competitor fraudulently failed to collect sales tax on its products. In Anza v. Ideal Steal Supply Corp., Ideal sued …
A Chinese court has overturned a 2004 decision by the country's patent review board allowing Chinese drug companies to sell counterfeit versions of the Pfizer drug Viagra, upholding Pfizer's patent and signaling China's intent to crack down on intellectual property rights violations, an official at the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court confirmed Monday. The …
Nepal officials on Sunday released three former ministers in the cabinet of the recently-dissolved royal government after the country's Supreme Court ruled that it could find no evidence for their continued detention. Former home minister Ramesh Nath Pandev, former foreign minister Nichhya Sumshere Rana and former state information and communications minister Srish Sumshere Rana were arrested [JURIST …
Defense lawyers in the Saddam Hussein trial resumed their case Monday after chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman said that four defense witnesses accused of perjury last week had been arrested and could therefore not attend Monday's session. Hussein's defense team last week accused the prosecution of trying to bribe one defense witness to …
The number of Guantanamo Bay detainees on hunger strike decreased from 89 to 18 over the weekend, US military officials said Sunday. The number of detainees on hunger strike suddenly jumped from three to 75 early last week, with an additional 14 joining the hunger strike late in the week. Detainees appear …
