Court to decide on new Taylor trial delay
Legal World
The Hague - Judges presiding over the war crimes trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor are expected to decide on Monday when the case will resume after his new defence team asked for a delay.
The trial chamber of the Sierra Leone tribunal, moved to The Hague for Taylor's trial, will hold a procedural hearing Monday to discuss the request of Taylor's new lawyers to postpone the trial until January 7, 2008. The prosecution has supported the move but said in a separate motion that the length of the adjournment should be decided by the judges.
Taylor, 59, the first African head of state to stand trial before an international court for war crimes, sacked his first lawyer on the grounds that he had no chance of receiving a fair hearing.
His trial officially opened on June 4 but the case got bogged down by the legal wrangling about Taylor's defence and was delayed several times.
Finally a new defence team was installed mid-July but lead counsel Courtenay Griffiths has argued he need more time to prepare. The defence already has about 40 000 pages of witness statements and documents to read through with many more expected to come as the case moves forward.
Once one of Africa's most feared warlords, Taylor has pleaded not guilty to all 11 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity including murder, rape and using child soldiers during the brutal 1991-2001 civil war in Sierra Leone.
Around 120 000 people were killed in the Sierra Leone conflict, with rebels mutilating thousands more, cutting off arms, legs, ears or noses.
Taylor is accused of arming, training and controlling Sierra Leone's notorious Revolutionary United Front (RUF), responsible for many of the mutilations, in exchange for still-unknown amounts of diamonds used to fund war.
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Grounds for Divorce in Ohio - Sylkatis Law, LLC
A divorce in Ohio is filed when there is typically “fault” by one of the parties and party not at “fault” seeks to end the marriage. A court in Ohio may grant a divorce for the following reasons:
• Willful absence of the adverse party for one year
• Adultery
• Extreme cruelty
• Fraudulent contract
• Any gross neglect of duty
• Habitual drunkenness
• Imprisonment in a correctional institution at the time of filing the complaint
• Procurement of a divorce outside this state by the other party
Additionally, there are two “no-fault” basis for which a court may grant a divorce:
• When the parties have, without interruption for one year, lived separate and apart without cohabitation
• Incompatibility, unless denied by either party
However, whether or not the the court grants the divorce for “fault” or not, in Ohio the party not at “fault” will not get a bigger slice of the marital property.