Allen’s legal team challenges involvement of US Attorney Pirro, citing her friendship with Trump and role at the gala where shots were fired.

The man accused of trying to assassinate United States ⁠President Donald Trump at a White House reporters gala last month has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Cole Allen, 31, of California did not speak in court as ⁠his attorney Tezira Abe entered the plea on his behalf. The charges include attempted assassination of the president, assault on a federal officer and firearms offences.

Prosecutors alleged Allen fired a shotgun at a US Secret Service agent and stormed a security checkpoint in a foiled attack on Trump ‌and other members of his administration at the White House correspondents dinner.

Allen’s lawyers asked US District Judge Trevor McFadden to disqualify at least two top Department of Justice officials from direct involvement in prosecuting him because they could be considered victims or witnesses in the case, creating a potential conflict of interest.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and US Attorney Jeanine Pirro were attending the event when Allen ran through a security checkpoint and fired a shotgun at a Secret Service officer, authorities said. Defence attorney Eugene Ohm said the defence likely would seek to disqualify Pirro’s entire office from involvement in the case.

McFadden didn’t rule from the bench on that question but asked Allen’s attorneys to elaborate on the possible scope of their recusal request.

Allen allegedly travelled to Washington by train, carrying a shotgun, pistol and knives, and booked a room in the Washington Hilton, where the April 25 dinner took place.

On Monday, Allen wore an orange jumpsuit and was shackled at the waist during the brief court proceeding. It was his first appearance in the Washington, DC, federal court before McFadden, who will preside over ⁠the remainder of the case.

A different ⁠judge last week apologised to Allen for his treatment in a Washington, DC, jail, which included being placed on suicide precautions and isolated from other inmates.

Allen’s other lawyer, Eugene Ohm, said the defence is likely to seek the recusal of the entire US Attorney’s Office in Washington, DC, which Pirro leads, because of her friendship with Trump and her status as a potential victim.

“It is wholly inappropriate ‌for victims of an alleged event like this to be individually prosecuting the case,” Ohm said.

Prosecutors are set to respond to the defence’s legal filing by May 22. Pirro previously ‌told ‌CNN in an interview that “my ability to prosecute this case has nothing to do with my being there [at the Hilton gala].”

Allen is scheduled to return to court on June 29.

Besides the attempted assassination count, Allen is also charged with assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon and two additional firearms counts. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted of the attempted assassination charge alone.

Allen was placed on suicide watch after his arrest, but jail officials removed him from that status after several days. Allen’s attorneys complained that he had been unnecessarily confined in a padded room with constant lighting, repeatedly strip-searched and placed in restraints outside his cell.

Allen told FBI agents that he didn’t expect to survive the attack, which could help explain why he was deemed to be a possible suicide risk, a Justice Department prosecutor said.

📰 மூல செய்தி (Source): https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/5/11/suspect-pleads-not-guilty-to-attempted-assassination-of-us-president?traffic_source=rss

A new legal framework would allow special tribunals to admit evidence obtained through torture and broadcast proceedings, raising alarms among rights groups.

Legal experts have warned that legislation being pushed through the Israeli parliament could result in Palestinians detained around the time of the October 7, 2023, attacks face publicly broadcast “show trials” and the death penalty.

The proposed bill, which has gained rare bipartisan support from both the governing coalition and the opposition, recently entered the parliament, known as the Knesset, for its final readings and would create a special military tribunal to try Palestinians accused of playing a role in the 7 October attacks, when Hamas-led fighters stormed communities along southern Israel’s fence with Gaza.

Co-sponsored by Simcha Rothman of the far-right Religious Zionism Party and Yulia Malinovsky of Yisrael Beytenu, and strongly backed by Justice Minister Yariv Levin, the legislation proposes a dedicated military headquarters and court in Jerusalem to handle the mass prosecution of Palestinians seized by Israeli forces on or around October 7.

At least 1,139 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the attacks, according to an Al Jazeera tally based on official Israeli statistics. About 240 others were seized as captives. Israel’s subsequent war on Gaza killed at least 72,500 Palestinians and destroyed the territory.

Crucially, the bill authorises the court to deviate from standard rules around evidence, legal procedures and detention, as well as granting judges the full authority to issue the death penalty against Palestinians implicated by prosecutors in the attacks.

While some members of the Knesset have championed the bill, the international community and rights groups argue the law could become a political weapon designed to strip detainees of fundamental legal protections.

It follows the Knesset’s approval of a one-sided bill that will instruct military courts to impose the death penalty on Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis in acts of “terror”, but will not impose the same penalty on Jewish Israelis convicted of killing Palestinians.

To handle the scale of the mass arrests following October 7, the legislation permits sweeping exemptions in standard legal procedures during the trials of Palestinian suspects.

Muna Haddad, an attorney with Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, has submitted a formal objection to the bill. She told Al Jazeera it intentionally lowers legal protections to guarantee fair trials in order to secure the mass conviction of Palestinians.

“The bill explicitly permits mass trials that deviate from standard rules of evidence, including broad judicial discretion to admit evidence obtained under coercive conditions that may amount to torture or ill-treatment,” Haddad said. “This constitutes a severe violation of fair trial guarantees that falls well short of international law requirements.”

In a departure from standard Israeli judicial practice, which typically prohibits courtroom cameras, the bill mandates the filming and public broadcasting of key moments in the trials on a dedicated website, including opening hearings, verdicts and sentencing.

Malinovsky, one of the bill’s sponsors, said that “the entire world will witness” the proceedings.

Haddad warned that this provision effectively “transforms proceedings into show trials at the expense of the accused’s rights.”

“The provisions governing public hearings… violate the presumption of innocence, the right to a fair trial, and the right to dignity,” Haddad explained. “The framework effectively treats indictment as a finding of guilt, before any judicial examination has begun.”

Because newly passed capital punishment laws cannot be applied retroactively, the new framework seeks to transplant existing Israeli criminal codes – such as treason, assisting an enemy in wartime and the 1950 Law for Preventing and Punishing the Crime of Genocide – into an entirely new legal construct with substantially lower standards of due process.

Israeli legislators have repeatedly compared the upcoming proceedings to the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann, a chief architect of the Nazi Holocaust, however, Haddad pointed out glaring historical and legal discrepancies in drawing parallels.

“Adolf Eichmann was not, in fact, tried under the Genocide Law but the Nazi and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law,” she clarified.

Haddad warned that the bill seeks to apply the crime of genocide in an “expansive and exceptional manner, despite it being one of the most serious, complex and narrowly defined offences in international law, one whose adjudication demands particularly rigorous evidentiary and legal scrutiny”.

Israel strictly limits the death penalty under civil law and has only carried out executions twice in its history. However, the domestic political climate has shifted drastically in recent years. The internal security agency, the Shin Bet, has publicly supported the potential use of the death penalty for October 7 attackers in what it describes as an act of deterrence.

When asked if the push for executions was merely domestic political theatre, Haddad was unequivocal.

“This is not political theatre,” she told Al Jazeera. “Lawmakers have clearly and explicitly stated their expectation that the death penalty will be applied. Taken together with the recent passage of the March 2026 death penalty law, we are witnessing a deliberate move toward ending Israel’s long-standing moratorium on the death penalty and operationalising it in practice.”

Under international law, imposing the death penalty through a compromised judicial process is illegal. “Any death sentence imposed in the absence of strict fair trial guarantees constitutes an arbitrary deprivation of life and is absolutely prohibited under international law,” Haddad said, citing the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

The risk of unchecked judicial authority is compounded by the fact that the minister of defence – a political actor – would be granted overarching authority over the law’s implementation, requiring only periodic written reports to a Knesset committee rather than independent civilian or judicial oversight.

Historically, Israel has operated two parallel legal systems in the occupied territories: civil law for Israeli settlers and military law for Palestinians.

According to data cited by Israeli rights groups, Palestinians tried in Israeli military courts face a conviction rate of 99.74 percent. In contrast, the conviction rate for Israelis tried in civilian courts for crimes committed against Palestinians is just around three percent.

Prominent international rights organisations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW), have previously described Israel’s legislative manoeuvres regarding the death penalty for Palestinians as a “discriminatory tool” that entrenches a “system of apartheid“.

📰 மூல செய்தி (Source): https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/5/11/israel-pushes-for-death-penalty-and-show-trials-for-oct-7-detainees?traffic_source=rss

Lebanese civil defence worker captures moment of Israeli strike

A Lebanese civil defence worker captured the moment an Israeli strike hit an active rescue operation in Toul, southern Lebanon. Emergency crews had entered a damaged building to search for survivors when it was hit.

📰 மூல செய்தி (Source): https://www.aljazeera.com/video/newsfeed/2026/5/11/lebanese-civil-defence-worker-captures-moment-of-israeli-strike?traffic_source=rss