For over a decade, Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic was one of the world's most wanted men. Tuesday evening, May 31, as the metal doors of the Dutch prison in Scheveningen closed behind him, their clang heralded an overdue victory for international justice and possibly a new beginning for Serbia, where the general spent most of his fugitive years. Mladic, who was indicted almost 16 years ago for the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica and other war crimes, ...

In the years following the Cold War and the hemorrhaging of Yugoslavia, Serbia earned the dubious distinction as Europe's pariah state, widely viewed as a brutal aggressor in the Balkan wars. But the past decade has seen Serbia change tack, steering away from prickly nationalism, and the arrest on Thursday of General Ratko Mladic, Europe's most wanted war-crimes suspect, represents a key moment in the country's journey to global respectability. It also, crucially, acts as a fillip ...

Iran's judiciary has postponed the blinding of a man as punishment for throwing acid in the face of a young woman in 2004, after she rejected his offer of marriage. The delay came in the face of mounting outcry both inside Iran and in the West over the sentencing, which is permissible under qesas, a principle of Islamic law allowing victims analogous retribution for violent crimes. The case has stirred passionate interest in Iran since 2004, when Majid ...

Muammar Gaddafi and his family could be hit with war-crimes indictments within the coming weeks for his brutal crackdown against unarmed protesters in eastern Libya last February, turning him and his top officials into international fugitives — and probably burying any hope of a ceasefire deal or an arrangement for quiet exile for Gaddafi and his family as a way of ending the war. As if to emphasize the regime's defiance on Wednesday, Gaddafi loyalists shelled the ...

Frank Jackson knows something about violent crime. As head of the Dangerous Offenders Task Force in Wake County, North Carolina, he's been around his share. Even so, this tape makes him cringe. It's a 911 call made to police the night of July 27. A young woman is phoning for help from her apartment in Fuquay-Varina, about 15 miles from Raleigh. Just before the tape goes dead -- police believe the phone was ripped from the wall -- she can ...

What parent hasn't used candy to pacify a cranky child or head off a brewing tantrum? When reasoning, threats and time-outs fail, a sugary treat often does the trick. But while that chocolate-covered balm may be highly effective in the short term, say British scientists, it may be setting youngsters up for problem behavior later. According to a new study, kids who eat too many treats at a young age risk becoming violent in adulthood. The research ...

The Nazi war crimes trial of 91-year-old John Demjanjuk — accused of being an accessory to the murder of at least 27,900 Jews at the Sobibor concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II — took a new twist on Wednesday when the defense team asked for the trial to be suspended after new revelations emerged suggesting that crucial evidence in the case had been faked. As lawyers wrapped up their closing arguments in Munich, Demjanjuk's defense attorney drew the judges' attention ...

More than 60 years after the end of World War II, an 89-year-old retired auto worker from Ohio went on trial in Germany on Monday in what many are calling the country's last Nazi war crimes proceeding. That's not the only reason the world is watching the trial closely: John Demjanjuk is also No. 1 on the Simon Wiesenthal Center's list of most-wanted war criminals, accused of being an accessory to the deaths of at least 27,900 people. Then there's the added drama of his ...

Jesus may have taught his disciples to turn the other cheek, but these days some churches are hiring armed security teams--just in case that whole forgiveness thing doesn't work out. A flurry of violent crimes in churches has shaken the image of houses of worship as safe havens. In October a priest in New Jersey died after being stabbed 32 times in his parish rectory. In May an abortion provider was shot in the head inside a Kansas ...

President Obama on Wednesday signed a law that makes it a federal crime to assault an individual because of his or her sexual orientation or gender identity.He cited the work of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and others "to make this day possible." Later Wednesday, Obama stood with Shepard's parents and relatives of Byrd at a separate White House event honoring passage of the expanded hate crimes law. Noting reports of 12,000 crimes based on sexual orientation over ...