International Court

KHARTOUM, Sudan -- The Sudanese can do a better job prosecuting crimes in Darfur than anyone else, Sudan's justice minister said yesterday, asserting international courts have no valid reason to investigate suspects in the vast area of western Sudan. Justice Minister Mohammed Ali al-Mardi spoke as a team from the International Criminal Court was in Khartoum to look into what the United Nations and others describe as war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. "We as a government are willing and able to try all perpetrators of offenses in Darfur, and for this reason the ICC...

Judges at an international war crimes tribunal will deliver landmark judgments Thursday in the trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who is charged with sponsoring brutal rebel groups in neighboring Sierra Leone's civil war. Prosecutors alleged at Taylor's trial that the charismatic war lord-turned elected president funneled arms, ammunition and even mining equipment to rebels in return for blood diamonds and power in the volatile West...

THE HAGUE — International judges said yesterday that the frenzy of killing and violence that erupted after Kenya’s disputed 2007 presidential elections may be crimes against humanity and authorized the court’s prosecutor to investigate. Weeks of violence after President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner of Kenya’s December 2007 elections left more than 1,000 dead and forced 600,000 to flee their homes. Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo, who asked the International Criminal Court in November for clearance to investigate the clashes, urged Kenya’s leaders to work with him....

NINETY-THREE years ago, at the Paris Peace Conference, Woodrow Wilson put forward a proposal for a Permanent Court of International Justice, saying, "a living thing is born. " Not quite. Fierce attachments to narrow notions of national sovereignty, especially strong in Wilson's own nation, forced a nearly century-long postponement of that birth. Recently, however, a cry of new life could be heard from The Hague, a hint that Wilson's ideal may yet be realized. The International Criminal Court issued its first verdict, finding Congolese rebel militia leader Thomas Lubanga Dyilo guilty of forcing...

KHARTOUM - Sudan's president traveled to Eritrea yesterday, choosing one of Africa's most politically isolated nations for his first trip abroad since the International Criminal Court sought his arrest on charges of war crimes in Darfur. The one-day visit followed Eritrea's official invitation to Sudan's Omar al-Bashir, who faces the arrest warrant by the Netherlands-based court. Eritrean television showed Bashir being greeted at the airport in the Eritrean capital Asmara by President Isaias Afwerki, along with drummers and dancers.

NINETY-THREE years ago, at the Paris Peace Conference, Woodrow Wilson put forward a proposal for a Permanent Court of International Justice, saying, "a living thing is born. " Not quite. Fierce attachments to narrow notions of national sovereignty, especially strong in Wilson's own nation, forced a nearly century-long postponement of that birth. Recently, however, a cry of new life could be heard from The Hague, a hint that Wilson's ideal may yet be realized. The International Criminal Court issued its first verdict, finding Congolese rebel militia leader Thomas Lubanga Dyilo guilty...

THE HAGUE - International Criminal Court prosecutors said yesterday they will review efforts by Libya's new rulers to investigate the death of the country's longtime dictator, Moammar Khadafy. Prosecutors said in a letter to the lawyer of one of the late dictator's daughters that they will give details of the review to the United Nations Security Council in a report next May. In the same report, prosecutors will outline their "strategy with regards to future investigations" of alleged war crimes in Libya.

WASHINGTON - Texas wants President Bush to get out of the way of the state's plan to execute a Mexican man for the killing of two teenage girls. Bush, who presided over 152 executions as governor of Texas, wants to halt the execution of José Ernesto Medellin in what has become a confusing test of presidential power that the Supreme Court ultimately will sort out. The president wants to enforce a decision by the International Court of Justice that found the convictions of Medellin and 50 other Mexican-born prisoners violated their rights to legal help as...

WASHINGTON -- Foreign murder suspects have no rights in US federal courts to challenge their convictions on the grounds they were improperly denied legal help from their consulates, the Supreme Court was told yesterday in a case testing the effect of international law in death penalty cases. Justices heard arguments in the case of Jose Medellin, who says his rights under a US treaty were violated when a Texas court sentenced him to death in 1994 without giving consular access. Several of the justices showed little interest in deciding...

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone -- Three former Sierra Leonean military leaders were found guilty of war crimes yesterday by a UN-backed court -- the first verdicts from the country's civil war and the first convictions in an international court for using child soldiers. The court found the defendants guilty of 11 of 14 charges, including terrorism, using child soldiers, enslavement, rape, and murder. The three were acquitted of charges of sexual slavery, "other inhumane acts" related to physical violence, and acts related to sexual violence, said Peter Andersen, spokesman for the...

GENEVA (AP) — The United Nations has a secret list of top Syrian officials who could face investigation for crimes against humanity carried out by security forces in Syria's crackdown on an uprising, a panel of UN human rights experts said today. The UN experts indicated the list goes as high as President Bashar Assad. Thousands of Syrians have died in the violence since March and the panel, citing what it called a reliable source, said at least 500 children are among the dead.

THE HAGUE - International Criminal Court prosecutors said yesterday they will review efforts by Libya's new rulers to investigate the death of the country's longtime dictator, Moammar Khadafy. Prosecutors said in a letter to the lawyer of one of the late dictator's daughters that they will give details of the review to the United Nations Security Council in a report next May. In the same report, prosecutors will outline their "strategy with regards to future investigations" of alleged war crimes in Libya.

THE HAGUE - Ivory Coast's former president appeared at the International Criminal Court yesterday, the first former head of state to face judges at the world's first permanent war crimes court. Laurent Gbagbo vowed to fight the charges against him. Gbagbo, 66, was calm and smiled at supporters in the public gallery as the 25-minute hearing opened. He told judges he did not need them to read the charges. Gbagbo was extradited to the Netherlands last week to face accusations his supporters committed murder and rape as he rejected an election result...

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - Clergy sex abuse victims upset that no high-ranking Roman Catholic leaders have been prosecuted for sheltering guilty priests went to the International Criminal Court yesterday, seeking an investigation of the pope and top Vatican cardinals for possible crimes against humanity. The Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York-based nonprofit legal group, requested the inquiry on behalf of the Survivors Network, arguing that the global church has maintained a "longstanding and pervasive system of sexual violence" despite promises...

LEIDSCHENDAM, Netherlands - A UN-backed international court released the names yesterday of four officials of the Hezbollah militia who are wanted on suspicion of murder in the 2005 truck bomb that killed former prime minister Rafik Hariri of Lebanon. Among the suspects is Mustafa Amine Badreddine, believed to have been Hezbollah's deputy military commander who also has been linked to the 1983 truck bombings at the US and French embassies in Kuwait. The tribunal also named Salim Jamil Ayyash, Hussein Hassan Oneissi, and Assad Hassan Sabra, all...

THE HAGUE — For years Ratko Mladic impressed friends and foes with his barking voice and commanding presence. But in the dock yesterday, the 68-year-old seemed diminished, the swagger gone, his speech slurred, the feared warrior now an infirm and elderly man. Mladic, a former Bosnian Serb general who was arrested in Serbia eight days ago after 16 years on the run, made his long-awaited appearance yesterday here before an international court...

LEIDSCHENDAM, Netherlands - A UN-backed international court released the names yesterday of four officials of the Hezbollah militia who are wanted on suspicion of murder in the 2005 truck bomb that killed former prime minister Rafik Hariri of Lebanon. Among the suspects is Mustafa Amine Badreddine, believed to have been Hezbollah's deputy military commander who also has been linked to the 1983 truck bombings at the US and French embassies in Kuwait. The tribunal also named Salim Jamil Ayyash, Hussein Hassan Oneissi, and Assad Hassan Sabra, all of whom the Shi'ite militia has claimed as...

HOUSTON -- A state appeals court chastised President Bush for intervening in the case of a condemned killer born in Mexico, one of several dozen cases in which Bush ordered new hearings amid international complaints. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals yesterday rejected the argument from Jose Ernesto Medellin that he was denied legal help specified in international treaties. Medellin, 31, who spent most of his life in Texas, was sentenced in 1994 to die for the rapes and killings of two teenage girls.

The son of Kenya’s founding father declared Friday he was innocent of all charges after he appeared with two other suspects before judges at the International Criminal Court for allegedly orchestrating postelection violence that killed 1,000 people Uhuru Kenyatta, Kenya’s deputy prime minister and finance minister, appeared at the preliminary hearing along with Cabinet secretary Francis Muthaura and the country’s former police chief Mohammed...