A Syrian doctor has been sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity in his home country—including murder and torture—by a German court. The 40-year-old man, Alaa Mousa, worked as a junior doctor in an army hospital and a military intelligence prison in Homs and Damascus in Syria, in 2011 and 2012, in the early phase of the civil war. 

Sri Lanka’s most recently unearthed mass grave has led to the discovery of 19 bodies, including those of three babies. The discovery of the mass grave has reopened old wounds for Sri Lanka’s Tamil community, which suffered the worst violence of the island’s 26-year civil war between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a group that was seeking a separate homeland for Tamils. 

A prominent Saudi journalist who was arrested in 2018 and convicted on terrorism and treason charges has been executed, the kingdom said. Activist groups maintain that the charges against him were trumped up. Turki Al-Jasser, who was in his late 40s, was put to death on Saturday, according to the official Saudi Press Agency, after the death penalty was upheld by the nation’s top court. Authorities had raided Al-Jasser's home in 2018, arresting him and seizing his computer and phones.

Guinea's military junta has created a new institution that will be responsible for managing elections, including a constitutional referendum in September and the general and presidential elections set for December. Guinea is one of several West African countries where the military has taken power and delayed a return to civilian rule. Gen. Mamadi Doumbouya, in power since 2021, agreed in 2022 to launch a democratic transition after a Dec. 31, 2024, deadline.

Last Wednesday, a High Court in Zimbabwe struck down provisions of the country’s Criminal Law Codification and Reform Act, commonly referred to as the “Patriotic Act,” as unconstitutional. The Patriotic Act, which President Emmerson Mnangagwa signed into law in July 2023, contains overly broad provisions that make the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and association a criminal offense. 

A Kenyan police officer has appeared in court in connection with the death of a teacher in police custody in a case that has caused outrage and protests and brought renewed scrutiny on the country’s security forces. Constable James Mukhwana is the first police officer to be arrested over the death of Albert Ojwang, a secondary school teacher who was arrested on 6 June in Homa Bay county, western Kenya, after criticizing a senior police official on social media.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has denied former president Rodrigo Duterte's bid to disqualify two judges from the Pretrial Chamber 1. In a June 9 ruling signed by Judge Tomoko Akane, the ICC said the application to change the chamber's composition was rejected unanimously during a plenary session.

Days before his arrest outside his daughter’s house in the outskirts of San Salvador, constitutional lawyer Enrique Anaya called Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele a “dictator” and a “despot” on live TV. This week, lawyer Jaime Quintanilla stood outside a detention facility in El Salvador’s capital with a box of food and clothes for his client, unsure if Anaya would ever be released.

Three United Nations agencies warned on Thursday of looming famine in a conflict-stricken part of South Sudan. People in 11 of 13 counties in South Sudan’s Upper Nile state now face emergency levels of hunger, the World Food Program, the U.N. Children’s Fund, and the Food and Agriculture Organization said in a joint statement.  Upper Nile is the scene of fighting between government troops and armed militias that oppose the government of President Salva Kiir.

Protesters took to the streets of the Kenyan capital on Thursday to vent their anger over the death of a blogger in police custody. Albert Ojwang was arrested June 6 in Homa Bay in western Kenya and driven 400 kilometers (248 miles) to Nairobi for what police said was publishing “false information” about a top police official on social media. He subsequently died at the Central Police Station after “hitting his head against the cell wall,” police said.