Local government in the United States

The former mayor of Bacau (county seat, northeast of Bucharest) Romeo Stavarache has been arraigned and placed under arrest pending trial on Friday for five charges of bribery, a release of the National Anticorruption Directorate informed AGERPRES.

A council of appeals court judges on Tuesday ruled that Golden Dawn deputy Nikos Michos should serve his pretrial custody under house arrest after a dispute emerged last week between the two magistrates and the prosecutor investigating the far-right party's alleged criminal activities.

A man involved in a domestic dispute opened fire at a suburban Houston home Wednesday evening, killing six people, four of them children, and wounding one teenage girl, authorities said.
     
The suspect surrendered after a three-hour standoff with deputies on a nearby street, emerging from his car, raising his hands and sinking to his knees. His identity was not released.

An Ankara court has ruled that five police officers should remain free pending trial, in the case into the illegal wiretapping of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's office.

The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office has dismissed a prosecution into suspects who were alleged members of “Selam Jerusalem Terrorist Organization,” which was mentioned in an eavesdropping case, saying there was not enough evidence to open a public case.

The Turkish government has replaced more than 2,500 judges and prosecutors, in its latest mass purge in the police and judiciary.

MP Sonia Maria Draghici has been referred to the court by prosecutors with the Supreme Court of Justice and Cassation for conflict of interest.

Prosecutors have ordered that a police officer who injured a protester during last year’s Gezi demonstrations in Ankara be searched for until 2028, the time limit of the statute of limitations for the crime.

Mustafa Namlı sustained permanent damage to his left-eye after being hit by a police tear gas canister during protests on June 1, 2013, in Ankara’s Kızılay Square.

Serbia's justice system is still influenced by the executive, while many judges and prosecutors believe it does not make decisions independently, a survey by the Nis-based NGO Center for Human Rights shows.

When asked whether they believe that they were independent of parliament, 75 per cent of the prosecutors answered that they were not, as did 17 per cent of the judges.

The Supreme Judicial Council (VSS) has elected Petar Belchev as the new administrative director of the Sofia Regional Prosecutor's Office.

Belchev was backed by 17 votes, with one vote against, and five abstentions.

The other candidate, Asen Hristov, prosecutor at the Sofia Regional Prosecutor's Office, was backed by one VSS member, with six votes against and 16 abstentions.