A US Green Beret was found not guilty at court-martial Feb. 25 of murder and mutilating a dead body in connection with the March 2008 killing of an Afghan man near Hyderabad, Afghanistan. Army Special Forces Master Sgt. Joseph Newell of the 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) was charged last September in connection with the death, which occurred after a driver whom Newell had stopped for questioning lunged, prompting Newell to shoot him twice. The military jury deliberated for about four hours before returning its verdict. (Jurist, Feb. 26)

US citizen and accused al-Qaeda member Christopher Paul was sentenced to 20 years in prison Feb. 26 for conspiring to conduct a terrorist bombing campaign against targets in the US and Europe. Paul was sentenced by Judge Gregory Frost of the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. Originally from Columbus, Ohio, Paul pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction in June 2008, agreeing to a sentence of 20 years.

An unexploded bomb forced the evacuation of the airport in in Mexico's violence-torn Ciudad Juárez Feb. 25, while a bomb threat cleared the border city's courthouse. Airport personnel and travelers returned to the airport three hours after the explosive device was found by police, an airport official said. No explosives were found at the courthouse. At a hotel three blocks from the courthouse, four federal government ministers were holding a security meeting about the unprecedented violence in the city. (AFP, Feb. 25)

After eight years in a maximum-security Mexican prison, convicted drug kingpin Miguel Caro Quintero AKA "Michael Jackson" was extradited to the US Feb. 25. With his brother Rafael Caro Quintero, the extradited kingpin is said to have led the Guadalajara Cartel, Mexico's top crime machine in the 1980s and forerunner of today's warring Tijuana Cartel and Sinaloa Cartel. Rafael, arrested in Costa Rica in 1985, is serving time in Mexico for the 1985 killing of US Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena. (AFP, El Universal, Feb. 25)

Federal, state, and local law enforcement in California, Minnesota, and Maryland arrested 50 people Feb. 25 who the US Justice Department claims are operatives of Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel and related criminal enterprises. Authorities also confiscated $59 million in drug money, 12,000 kilos of cocaine, 1,200 pounds of methamphetamine, 1.3 million Ecstasy pills and more than 160 weapons. The Justice Department said federal agents arrested more than 750 alleged cartel operatives in the last 21 months as a part of the same investigation, "Operation Xcellerator." Attorney General Eric Holder, making the announcement, said: "We can provide our communities the safety and the security that they deserve only by confronting these dangerous cartels head-on, without reservation. We can do that and we will do that. These cartels will be destroyed." (KDBC, El Paso, Phoenix Business Journal, Feb. 25)

An appeals court in Paris Feb. 24 overturned the terrorism convictions of five French nationals formerly detained at Guantánamo Bay. Arrested in Afghanistan in 2001, the men spent up to two years in US custody at Guantánamo. Sent back to France in 2007, where they were sentenced to prison on terrorism-related charges, although they were not imprisoned as they had already served time before the trial. The Paris appeals court ruled that the men had been improperly questioned by the French intelligence services while they were at Guantánamo, making the charges baseless. The men acknowledged spending time at Afghan military training camps, but said they never put their combat skills to use. (EuroNews, Feb. 24)

The US Justice Department announced Feb. 24 that notorious international arms smuggler Monzer al-Kassar, AKA "Abu Munawar" AKA "El Taous" was sentenced today to 30 years in prison for conspiring to sell millions of dollars worth of weapons to be used to kill US nationals in Colombia. Al-Kassar's associate and co-defendant Luis Felipe Moreno Godoy was sentenced to 25 years in prison for his role in the conspiracy. US District Judge Jed S. Rakoff imposed the sentences in Manhattan federal court.

A prominent Kurdish lawmaker gave a speech in his native Kurdish in Turkey's Parliament Feb. 24—in defiance of the law. Turkey's state TV network cut off the live broadcast of the official, Ahmet Turk, as he spoke to members of his political party, the Democratic Society Party, known by its Turkish acronym DTP.