Pakistan court summons anti-corruption boss

Court News 2013/02/01 14:47   Bookmark and Share
Pakistan's top court has summoned the government's anti-corruption chief over a letter he wrote criticizing the tribunal's judges.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry on Thursday issued a court order for the anti-corruption chief, Fasih Bokhari, to appear before the tribunal on February 4.

Bokhari has been ordered to explain a letter he wrote earlier this week to President Asif Ali Zardari, accusing Supreme Court judges of trying to influence upcoming parliamentary elections.

Chaudhry says the letter amounted to interference in court matters and was an effort to incite against the judiciary.

The development is an indication Bokhari could be charged with contempt of court.

Bokhari's clash with the judiciary stems from his refusal in mid-January to arrest the prime minister over a corruption case involving kickbacks allegedly taken by the premier.
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Ex-BAE agent found guilty of manipulating evidence

Headline Legal News 2013/01/17 23:48   Bookmark and Share
An Austrian court has found a former agent for Defense Contractor BAE Systems PLC guilty of tampering with evidence but innocent of the more serious charge of money laundering.

After pronouncing his verdict Thursday, Judge Stefan Apostol sentenced Count Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly to a suspended two-month prison term.

Mensdorff-Pouilly was originally charged with paying out €12.6 million ($16.7 million) on behalf of BAE to contacts in Eastern and Central Europe in efforts to win contracts.

Prosecutor Michael Radasztics says he will appeal.

Mensdorff-Pouilly was charged in Britain in 2011 with conspiracy to corrupt in his efforts to secure contracts. But the charges were dropped after the company agreed to pay a multimillion-dollar fine to settle an arms export controls case with the U.S. Department of State.
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Court weighs warrantless blood tests in DUI cases

Headline Legal News 2013/01/09 20:09   Bookmark and Share
The Supreme Court is considering whether police must get a warrant before ordering a blood test on an unwilling drunken-driving suspect.

The justices heard arguments Wednesday in a case involving a disputed blood test from Missouri. Police stopped a speeding, swerving car and the driver, who had two previous drunken-driving convictions, refused to submit to a breath test to measure the alcohol level in his body.

The justices appeared to struggle with whether the dissipation of alcohol in the blood over time is reason enough for police to call for a blood test without first getting a warrant.

In siding with defendant Tyler McNeely, the Missouri Supreme Court said police need a warrant to take a suspect's blood except when a delay could threaten a life or destroy potential evidence.
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Convicted financier says he can't afford a lawyer

Court News 2012/12/19 23:56   Bookmark and Share
An Indiana financier and former chief executive of National Lampoon who was convicted of swindling investors out of about $200 million says he can't afford to hire an attorney to handle his appeal.

In federal court documents filed Monday, Timothy Durham said his multimillion-dollar Indianapolis home is in foreclosure and all of his financial assets are tied up bankruptcy proceedings of the companies he used to control.

Durham's home in Fortville, Ind., about 20 miles northeast of Indianapolis, has a $5 million mortgage but a free-market value of only $3 million, according to the documents.

Durham says his only income this year was $6,000 he received as a director of Dallas-based insurer CLST Holdings Inc. He also has stock in CLST and National Lampoon, the documents say.

Durham was sentenced to 50 years in prison last month on securities fraud and other convictions in the collapse of Akron, Ohio-based Fair Finance. He also was ordered to pay $202.8 million in restitution. Durham received credit for $6 million that already has been recovered.

Durham and two business partners were charged with stripping Fair Finance of its assets and using the money to buy mansions, classic cars and other luxury items and to keep another Durham company afloat. The men were convicted of operating an elaborate Ponzi scheme to hide the company's depleted condition from regulators and investors, many of whom were elderly.

Defense lawyers argued that Durham and the others were caught off-guard by the economic crisis of 2008, and bewildered when regulators placed them under more strict scrutiny and investors made a run on the company.
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Pentagon lawyer: War on terror not endless

Court Watch 2012/12/10 23:09   Bookmark and Share
The war on terror is not an endless conflict and the U.S. is approaching a "tipping point" after which the military fight against al-Qaida will be replaced by a law enforcement and intelligence operation, the Pentagon's top lawyer has said.

Jeh Johnson told an audience at Oxford University that the core of al-Qaida is "degraded, disorganized and on the run," according to a transcript of Friday's speech.

Johnson, general counsel to the U.S. Defense Department, said that once most al-Qaida members are captured or killed, armed conflict would be replaced by "a counterterrorism effort against individuals" led by law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

His speech to the Oxford Union debating society marked rare public comments by a senior U.S. official about the end of the armed conflict launched after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Shortly after 9/11, U.S. legislators passed a law that essentially granted the White House open-ended authority for armed action against al-Qaida.

Despite a promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp for terror suspects, President Barack Obama has largely carried forward the anti-terrorism policies of his predecessor, George W. Bush. He authorized the raid that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and has expanded the use of unmanned drone strikes against targets in Pakistan and Yemen.
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Justices won't reinstate award against Hustler mag

Headline Legal News 2012/12/10 14:23   Bookmark and Share
The Supreme Court won't reinstate an award against a racy magazine in a dispute over nude pictures of a model published after she was killed by her professional wrestler husband.

The court turned away a request by the family of Nancy Toffoloni Benoit to reinstate a jury's decision to make Hustler Magazine pay them almost $20 million. The magazine published the photos after she and her son were killed in 2007 by wrestler Chris Benoit.

Benoit's family said Nancy never gave permission to publish the 24-year-old photos, while the magazine said it could print them because they were newsworthy.

The jury's 2011 decision to penalize the magazine $19.6 million was later reduced to $250,000. The award was then thrown out by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
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