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No bail for Maine man detained in car bomb probe
Criminal Law Updates |
2010/07/16 10:38
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A Pakistani man detained on an immigration violation in Maine while authorities investigated the attempted Times Square car bombing will continue to be held in jail because an immigration judge revoked his bail. Mohammad Shafiq Rahman's family rounded up the $10,000 to secure his release only to learn the judge had revoked bail at the urging of immigration officials, said Barry Hoffman, Pakistan's consul general in Boston. Rahman's attorney is seeking another bail hearing, Hoffman said. Rahman, a computer specialist who overstayed his visa, continues to be held in the Cumberland County Jail. It was unclear why immigration officials urged the judge to reverse the June 30 decision to set bond. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement "has determined it is most appropriate he remain in custody," spokesman Richard Rocha said. But Hoffman said it appeared ICE was spending too much of its resources going after someone like Rahman. "I'm sure there are real terrorists out there. Spending all their resources on this case has me mystified," he said.
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UK court fines 5 firms for massive 2005 explosion
Legal World News |
2010/07/16 09:36
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A British court fined five companies a total of 9.5 million pounds ($14.6 million) Friday for a massive 2005 explosion at a U.K. oil depot that sent a huge smoke plume drifting across the European continent. Total UK, a subsidiary of French oil company Total SA, was found liable for negligence and ordered to pay most of it — 6.2 million pounds ($9.5 million). The explosion at the Buncefield oil depot, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of London, was triggered when tens of thousands of gallons of gasoline were released in a huge vapor cloud. The blast injured 43 people, caused more than 1 billion pounds in damage and registered a magnitude 2.4 on earthquake monitors. The explosion was the costliest industrial disaster in British history, Britain's Health and Safety Executive said Friday. Worse casualties were avoided only because the explosion took place early Sunday morning when few people were at work. Judge David Calvert-Smith said the companies involved — Total UK Ltd., British Pipeline Agency Ltd., Hertfordshire Oil Storage Ltd., TAV Engineering Ltd. and Motherwell Control Systems 2003 Ltd. — had shown "a slackness, inefficiency and a more or less complacent attitude to safety." He said the problems at the site were so serious that the disaster could have happened "at almost any hour of any day" and said it was just "short of miraculous" that more people were not injured.
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Government seeks tough sentence against NY lawyer
Lawyer Blog News |
2010/07/15 17:15
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A judge was poised to decide whether the government and some fellow judges were right when they said a 70-year-old former civil rights lawyer convicted in a terrorism case received too much leniency when she was sentenced to just over two years in prison. U.S. District Judge John Koeltl was to resentence attorney Lynne Stewart on Thursday after considering the comments of appeals court judges who said he should review the role of terrorism in her case and consider if she lied when she testified at her trial. Stewart, facing up to 30 years in prison, was sentenced to two years and four months after her conviction on charges that she let blind Egyptian Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman communicate with a man who relayed messages to senior members of an Egyptian-based terrorist organization. Abdel-Rahman is serving a life sentence for conspiracies to blow up New York City landmarks and assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Stewart represented him at his 1995 trial. Stewart was sentenced in 2006 but was permitted to remain free until the appeals court ruled last November. Initially, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a resentencing that did not seem to pressure Koeltl to boost the length of the sentence considerably. But it revised its decision a month later, saying it had "serious doubts" whether her sentence was reasonable. The appeals court said Koeltl might have erred if he decided the terrorism enhancement should not be applied because of Stewart's personal characteristics.
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Law firm offering reward for finding killer of UT student
Headline News |
2010/07/15 14:15
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A local law firm is now offering a reward for information that leads to the capture of the person who shot and killed University of Tampa student Ryan McCall last August. McCall and a friend were walking near the campus when a man robbed and shot them. The law firm of Winters and Yonker wants to give $50,000 to anyone who leads police to McCall's killer. A cell phone recording of the exchange that happened the night McCall died captured an unknown voice saying, "Get over here. Get the (expletive) over here. Get over here. Get over here. Get the (expletive) over here. Get over here." If you have any information that could help lead police to Ryan McCall's killer, call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-873-TIPS.
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US transfers Gitmo prisoner to Yemen
Legal World News |
2010/07/15 13:13
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A Guantanamo Bay prisoner has been transferred to his homeland of Yemen, the U.S. Defense Department announced on Tuesday, after a U.S. district court ordered the longtime detainee's release. The release of 26-year-old Mohammed Odaini after eight years at Guantanamo Bay was an exception to the Obama administration's freeze on prisoner transfers to the turbulent country after the failed attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day. Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has claimed responsibility for the failed attempt. "The suspension of Yemeni repatriations from Guantanamo remains in effect due to the security situation that exists there. However, the administration respects the decisions of U.S. federal courts," the Pentagon said in a statement. Yemen, a poor country with a weak central government on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, has struggled to confront a growing al-Qaida presence. American worries about Yemen's ability to fight al-Qaida heightened last year after several Yemeni detainees who had been released from Guantanamo Bay in Cuba resurfaced as leaders of an al-Qaida offshoot. Those concerns deepened in the wake of the failed Christmas attack.
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Specter, Yes; Wicker, No, as Kagan vote draws near
Law & Politics |
2010/07/15 13:12
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Sen. Arlen Specter says he will support the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court despite what he calls her "non-answers" to senators' questions during confirmation hearings. In an op-ed piece published Thursday in USA Today, the Pennsylvania Democrat and past critic of Kagan said she "did just enough to win my vote." Specter, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, cited Kagan's openness to televised Supreme Court proceedings and her pick of Justice Thurgood Marshall as her role model. Specter voted last year against confirming Kagan to her current post as solicitor general. He was then a Republican, and has said he opposed her because she wouldn't answer questions about how she'd approach cases. Specter, who switched parties last year, acknowledged in his op-ed that Kagan was following other high court nominees in giving evasive responses. "But her non-answers were all the more frustrating, given her past writings that the hearings were vacuous and lacked substance," he wrote, referring to a 1995 book review by Kagan that criticized Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
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