The Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation into whether some HSBC Holdings Plc clients may have failed to disclose offshore accounts, lawyers familiar with the probe said on Tuesday.

The London-based bank has become the latest focus of a widening federal probe into U.S. citizens believed to have stored billions of dollars of assets in offshore accounts to avoid scrutiny by domestic tax authorities.

HSBC clients have received a June 21 letter from Kevin Downing, a senior litigator at the Justice Department who oversaw the UBS probe, that says they are subjects of a criminal investigation. Reuters obtained a copy of the letter.

A Justice Department representative did not immediately return an email request for comment.

Last year, Switzerland's UBS AG admitted to criminal wrongdoing for helping U.S. clients evade taxes. It agreed to pay a $780 million penalty and hand over details on more than 250 client accounts, and later agreed to disclose names of 4,450 wealthy U.S. clients to tax investigators.

Germany condemned Wednesday the jailing of a 79-year-old prominent human rights lawyer by a Syrian court and demanded his immediate release.

The German government's human rights commissioner, Markus Loening, said he was "shocked" by the sentencing of Haytham al-Maleh to three years in prison Sunday on charges of "publishing false information".

"Mr Maleh is considered a leader of the Syrian human rights movement who has committed himself for decades at great personal risk for the protection of human rights in his country," Loening said.

"I call on the Syrian government to comply with its international commitments, in particular in implementing the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and, in light of Mr Maleh's advanced age and his precarious health, release him immediately."

Maleh was arrested in Damascus on October 14 last year, and investigated by the military court over articles he had written.

The lawyer had been imprisoned from 1980 to 1986, along with a large number of trade unionists, activists and political opponents, for demanding constitutional reforms.

He has worked with Amnesty International since 1989 and, in 2001, helped to establish the Syrian Human Rights Association, whose activities have been frozen for more than three years.

A Kentucky man has pleaded guilty to writing and posting on a white supremacist website a poem threatening the assassination of President Barack Obama.

Johnny Logan Spencer Jr. of Louisville entered an open plea — admitting guilt without a deal with prosecutors — Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Louisville.

The 28-year-old Spencer's sentencing is set for Nov. 2. The charge carries a maximum of five years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release.

U.S. Secret Service Special Agent Stephan M. Pazenzia said in an affidavit that Spencer wrote and posted the poem, titled "The Sniper," on a page called NewSaxon.org.

The poem describes a gunman shooting and killing a "tyrant" later identified as the president, setting off panic.

A Phoenix man accused of trying to use the government's Cash for Clunkers program to ditch his BMW after a fatal hit-and-run crash last year has pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

Maricopa County prosecutors say 24-year-old Timothy M. Kissida was driving his luxury car shortly after midnight Aug. 8 when he hit a bicyclist. Phoenix police say 52-year-old Charles Waldrop's bike had lights and reflectors.

Later that day, Kissida allegedly tried to use the Cash for Clunkers program, aimed at putting more fuel-efficient cars on the road, to trade in his car. Police say he told a dealer his BMW was damaged when he hit a javelina, a pig-like desert mammal.

Kissida was arrested after a tip to police.

He also pleaded guilty Tuesday to leaving the scene of an accident and tampering with evidence. A sentencing date has yet to be scheduled.

A judge ordered Australian band Men at Work on Tuesday to hand over a portion of the royalties from their 1980s hit "Down Under," after previously ruling its distinctive flute riff was copied from a children's campfire song.

But the penalty — 5 percent of the song's royalties — was far less than the 60 percent sought by publishing company Larrikin Music, which holds the copyright for the song "Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree."

"Kookaburra" was written more than 70 years ago by Australian teacher Marion Sinclair for a Girl Guides competition, and the song about the native Australian bird has been a favorite around campfires from New Zealand to Canada.

Sinclair died in 1988, but Larrikin filed a copyright lawsuit last year. In February, Federal Court Justice Peter Jacobson ruled Men at Work had copied their song's signature flute melody from "Kookaburra."

On Tuesday, Jacobson ordered Men at Work's recording company, EMI Songs Australia, and "Down Under" songwriters Colin Hay and Ron Strykert, to pay 5 percent of royalties earned from the song since 2002 and from its future earnings. A statute of limitations restricted Larrikin from seeking royalties earned before 2002.

A U.S. appeals court says an Algerian protesting his Guantanamo detention deserves a new lower court review. The review should determine whether he was part of al-Qaida.

The three-judge panel reversed a decision that concluded Belkacem Bensayah's imprisonment was legal because he was an al-Qaida supporter.

U.S. Circuit Judge Douglas Ginsburg said the government presented no direct evidence of actual communication between Bensayah and any al-Qaida member.