The Supreme Court in the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan on Tuesday refused to release an ethnic Uzbek journalist and activist serving a life sentence after being convicted of stirring up ethnic hatred, but instead sent his case to a regional court for review. International rights groups consider Azimzhan Askarov a prisoner of conscience.
 
The U.N. Human Rights Committee in April urged Kyrgyzstan to release Askarov, recognizing that he had been arbitrarily detained, tortured and denied his right to a fair trial. This opened the way for a reconsideration of his case, and Kyrgyzstan's Supreme Court began hearings on Monday.

The charges against Askarov relate to ethnic unrest in the south of Kyrgyzstan in 2010 when more than 450 people, mostly ethnic Uzbeks, were killed and tens or even hundreds of thousands were displaced. He is accused of inciting the mob killing of a police officer.

Amnesty International sharply criticized the court's decision on Tuesday to keep 65-year-old Askarov in prison while a lower court reviews his case.

"It's a missed opportunity for Kyrgyzstan to do the right thing by finally releasing a man who should never have been jailed in the first place. Today's decision by the Supreme Court ignores Kyrgyzstan's obligations under international human rights law," Amnesty International senior research director Anna Neistat said in a statement.

A court in El Salvador has agreed to consider a civil case against former President Mauricio Funes, his wife and one of his sons for possible illicit enrichment.

The San Salvador court press office said Saturday that several government institutions have been ordered to hand over information related to the family's finances, properties and businesses.

Under scrutiny is some $728,000 in unexplained income and expenditures. Funes has 20 days to respond to present evidence in his defense.

The former president has criticized the allegations in the past. He said some of the Supreme Court justices who voted to order the lower court to open the case in February had previously attacked his government while sitting on the Constitutional Court.

Mobile phones ordinarily are strictly forbidden in the marble courtroom of the nation's highest court, but the justices are making an exception next week when roughly a dozen deaf and hard-of-hearing lawyers will be admitted to the Supreme Court bar.

The lawyers will use their phones to see a real-time transcript as they take part in an April 19 swearing-in ceremony featuring the largest group of hearing-impaired attorneys ever admitted at one time to practice before the high court.

Advocates for deaf lawyers say they hope the event will encourage others with disabilities to pursue legal careers.

"We wanted to do an event that would help break down stereotypes and demonstrate clearly that deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals can achieve anything they set their minds to," said Anat Maytal, a New York lawyer and president of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Bar Association.

Nearly 4,000 lawyers join the Supreme Court bar each year, though the vast majority will never actually represent a client there. Membership requires a $200 fee, membership in a state bar for three years and sponsorship by two current Supreme Court bar members.

Hillary Clinton wants voters to consider what Republican front-runner Donald Trump might do to shape the Supreme Court.

Clinton planned to use in a speech in Madison, Wisconsin, on Monday to argue that Trump could roll back the rights of individuals, further empower corporations and undo some of the nation's progress.

Clinton was campaigning in Wisconsin ahead of the state's April 5 primary and speaking Monday at the University of Wisconsin about President Barack Obama's nomination of Judge Merrick Garland.

Clinton holds a large lead among delegates against Democratic rival Bernie Sanders but is trying to stamp out the Vermont senator's momentum following his victories in five of the last six states holding contests.

Clinton's campaign said ahead of the speech that the Democratic presidential candidate would call on Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley of Iowa to commit to giving Garland a hearing. Grassley and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., have said that the late Justice Antonin Scalia should not be replaced until the next president picks a nominee.

A U.N. court convicted former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic of genocide and nine other charges Thursday and sentenced him to 40 years in prison for orchestrating Serb atrocities throughout Bosnia's 1992-95 war that left 100,000 people dead.

As he sat down after hearing his sentence, Karadzic slumped slightly in his chair, but showed little emotion.

The U.N. court found Karadzic guilty of genocide in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in which 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered in Europe's worst mass murder since the Holocaust.

Presiding Judge O-Gon Kwon said Karadzic was the only person in the Bosnian Serb leadership with the power to halt the genocide.

In a carefully planned operation, Serb forces transported Muslim men to sites around the Srebrenica enclave in eastern Bosnia and gunned them down before dumping their bodies into mass graves.

Kwon said Karadzic and his military commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic, intended "that every able-bodied Bosnian Muslim male from Srebrenica be killed."

Karadzic was also held criminally responsible for murder, attacking civilians and terror for overseeing the deadly 44-month siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, during the war and for taking hostage U.N. peacekeepers.

However, the court acquitted Karadzic in a second genocide charge, for a campaign to drive Bosnian Muslims and Croats out of villages claimed by Serb forces.

In fresh details provided as a young Mississippi man pleaded guilty to a terrorism-related charge, federal prosecutors said his fiancee led him toward a plan to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State.

Muhammad Dakhlalla, 23, pleaded guilty Friday in Aberdeen to providing material support to terrorism and faces up to 20 years in prison, $250,000 fines and lifetime probation. U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock hasn't set his sentencing date yet.

His fiancee, Jaelyn Delshaun Young, is set for trial June 6 before Aycock. Plea agreements typically require cooperation with federal prosecutors, so Dakhlalla's plea makes it likely that he would testify against Young if a trial proceeds.

Both remain jailed without bail in Oxford.

A five-page statement of facts added new details about Young's conversion to Islam and her influence on Dakhlalla, who had been raised as a Muslim. The pair at one point planned to claim they were going on their honeymoon while traveling to Syria.

Young, a sophomore chemistry major at Mississippi State University at the time of her arrest, is the daughter of a school administrator and a police officer who served in the Navy reserve. She was a former honor student, cheerleader and homecoming maid at Vicksburg's Warren Central High School.