Turkish politician and Kurdish rights activist Leyla Zana was sentenced April 8 to three years in prison for spreading terrorist propaganda. Zana was convicted by a court in the city of Diyarbakir for two speeches delivered at a Kurdish political congress in 2008. Zana has previously been convicted for spreading propaganda under Turkey's anti-terrorism laws, most recently facing a 10-year sentence in 2008 for supporting the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK). She remains free pending appeal.

A federal grand jury in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on March 29 returned a five-count indictment against nine suspected members of the "Hutaree" militia group accused of plotting to kill police officers. The group members allegedly planned to kill Michigan law enforcement officers by, among other methods, making phony 911 calls and ambushing those who responded. The members then planned to attack the funeral processions of the fallen officers.

A judge in the US District Court for the District of Columbia on March 24 denied a Yemeni Guantánamo Bay detainee's habeas corpus petition on its merits, allowing the US government to prolong the detention indefinitely. Detainee Makhtar Yahia Naji al Warafi was captured during the 2001-2002 US campaign in Afghanistan and maintains that he was only a medical clinic worker at the time. The US alleges that Pentagon intelligence demonstrates Warafi was a trained jihadist. The order by judge Royce Lamberth cites a classified memorandum containing details of the reasoning, which was filed with the court security officer.

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) announced March 23 that three Guantánamo Bay detainees had been transferred to the country of Georgia. The transfer was approved by unanimous consent of the Guantánamo Review Task Force, an inter-agency group that reviewed several factors regarding the detainees, including security. The identities of the released detainees are being withheld due to security and privacy concerns. The DoJ stated that the US "is grateful to Georgia for its willingness to support US efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay facility." More than 580 detainees have been transferred from Guantánamo Bay since 2002. With the departure of these last three detainees, 183 detainees remain in the military prison.

A judge in the US District Court for the District of Columbia on March 22 ordered the release of a Guantánamo Bay detainee who had been accused of planning the 9-11 attacks. Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a Mauritanian who has been in US custody for over seven years, brought a habeas corpus petition, claiming that he had been tortured in prison and had made confessions under duress. Slahi was once considered a key al-Qaeda leader and prosecutors had sought the death penalty against him. However, a prominent government prosecutor stepped down from the case in protest of the abusive treatment allegedly used against Slahi. The judge's decision is currently classified, although the court suggested that the files will become available at a future date.

The US Supreme Court on March 22 declined to rule in the case known as Kiyemba II, in which the court was asked to consider issues surrounding the transfer of Guantánamo Bay detainees. Lawyers for four Chinese Muslim Uighurs detained at Guantánamo were appealing an April 2009 ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Columbia Circuit, which held that US courts cannot prevent the government from transferring Guantánamo detainees to foreign countries on the grounds that detainees may face prosecution or torture in the foreign country. The case is separate from a case the court remanded to the DC circuit court earlier this month, known as Kiyemba I.

The State of Law Coalition led by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on March 17 asked the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) to recount ballots cast in the March 7 parliamentary election, alleging fraud. State of Law spokesperson Ali al-Adib claimed that the ballots were manipulated by the manager of an electronic counting center who is allegedly linked to the rival Iraqiya bloc, led by former prime minister Iyad Allawi.

A court in Marseilles March 12 ordered that anti-Islamic campaign posters put up by the far-right National Front be taken down. The posters, proclaiming "No to Islamism," depict a fully veiled woman standing next to a map of France with the pattern of the Algerian flag on it, and are directly inspired by Swiss posters deployed during the referendum on minarets. The court held them to constitute an unlawful disturbance of public order. In a press release, the party denounced the decision as "a serious violation of the freedom of opinion and of speech during an election period" and said it will appeal against it. The Algerian government had issued a complaint about the posters.