US senators are demanding that BP face a criminal investigation into its role in freeing convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi last year. New York Democrat Charles Schumer joined with victims' relatives to call for a probe into BP's "blood money" in the Lockerbie case. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also called on Scottish and British authorities to review the circumstances that led Scotland to release al-Megrahi in 2009.

The US Supreme Court on July 17 declined to review the decision of a lower court permitting the government to transfer Guantánamo Bay detainee Farhi Saeed bin Mohammed to Algeria. The 5-3 decision leaves in place a ruling of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, in which the government asserted that Mohammed's return to Algeria was permissible because there was not credible evidence that he would face torture upon his arrival. Mohammed may appeal, though it is possible that he will have been returned to Algeria by that time. Later that day, the court similarly rejected the request of a second Algerian, Abdul Aziz Naji, to review his pending transfer.

The government of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate announced July 19 that the two Guantánamo Bay detainees accepted by Germany earlier this month would be confined for at least a year while undergoing psychological treatment and integration training. Rhineland-Palatinate Interior Minister Karl Peter Bruch did not name the closed facility in which the detainees would be held after their arrival in September, but stated that they would remain there at least a year before being released into the the states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Hamburg. During that time, they will be undergo psychological analysis, receive German language training and be observed by doctors and social workers.

Southern District of New York Judge John G. Koeltl decided July 15 to increase disbarred attorney Lynne Stewart's sentence from 28 months to 10 years. Stewart was found guilty in 2005 of distributing press releases on behalf of her imprisoned client Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, also known as the "Blind Sheikh," in violation of "special administrative measures."

A federal judge on June 26 ordered the release of Guantánamo Bay detainee Mohammed Odaini, who will now be transferred to his homeland of Yemen, despite the Obama administration's ban on repatriation to the Arab nation. In January, the administration suspended all transfers of Guantánamo detainees to Yemen citing security concerns. Judge Henry Kennedy Jr. of the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the US government has illegally detained Odaini for the past eights years and ordered his release, forcing the administration to make an exception to the ban.

The US Supreme Court on June 21 ruled 6-3 in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project that the section of the PATRIOT Act criminalizing the provision of "material support" for groups designated "terrorist organizations" does not violate the First Amendment. The Court held that the law's prohibitions on "expert advice," "training," "service," and "personnel" are not vague, and did not violate speech or association rights as applied to plaintiffs' intended activities.

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on June 8 denied a petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed by Guantánamo Bay detainee Adham Mohammed Ali Awad, allowing for continued incarceration of the Yemeni national by the US government. A three-judge panel unanimously upheld the district court's decision, which referred to Awad's role in armed conflict as "gossamer thin," but still denied the detainee's request for relief from indefinite incarceration.

From the Center for Constitutional Rights, June 7:

CCR Endorses New Report Showing Evidence of Bush Administration
Human Experimentation on Men in CIA Secret Detention
Violations of Nuremburg Code and Role of Health Professionals
In Secret Torture Program Require Criminal Investigation
Today, the Center for Constitutional Rights issued the following statement in response to a new report by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), Experiments in Torture: Human Subject Research and Evidence of Experimentation in the "Enhanced" Interrogation Program. Download the report at http://phrtorturepapers.org.