Former Premier Silvio Berlusconi's tax fraud conviction and four-year prison sentence were upheld on the first appeal Wednesday in a case that could see him barred from public office for five years.

In Italy, defendants are legally considered innocent until all appeals are exhausted, and Berlusconi's lawyers are expected to appeal the case to the nation's highest Court of Cassation once the reasoning for the decision is published.

Still, the ruling, which comes just days before prosecutors wrap up closing arguments in his sensational sex-for-hire trial, raises the question of whether Berlusconi's days as a political force are numbered.

His center-right forces are allied with the Democratic Party in a grand coalition, and although Berlusconi holds no governmental posts he remains influential. It was his decision to head the center-right coalition, after initially saying he would move aside for younger leaders, that gave a boost to his forces in February's election campaign, finishing a close second to the center-left.

Guatemala's highest court on Tuesday ordered that the genocide trial against one of the Central American country's former dictators be taken over by a judge who wants the proceedings to go back to square one.

A spokesman for the Constitutional Court, Martin Guzman, said the case of Efrain Rios Montt now goes back to Judge Carol Patricia Flores, who last week ordered that the proceedings start over at a point before the retired general was charged with genocide.

Rios Montt, 86, is accused of responsibility for the deaths of 1,771 Mayan Indians killed during military offensives by the dictatorship that he headed from March 1982 to August 1983. The operations, during a U.S.-backed war against leftist guerrillas, were part of a "scorched earth" campaign aimed at wiping out support for the rebels.

The trial against Rios Montt and Jose Rodriguez Sanchez, 68, a former high-ranking member of the military chiefs of staff, had been nearing closing arguments last week when Flores intervened.

Flores had handled the case in its pre-trial stage, but was taken off the case in February 2012 by an appeals court after the defense filed a complaint saying she was biased against the defendants. She was reinstated last week by the Constitutional Court, then ruled that all actions taken in the case since she was first asked to step down in November 2011 were null.

Neither Rios Montt's lawyers nor attorneys for the plaintiffs returned calls from The Associated Press seeking comment on Tuesday's action.

Many speculated that Flores' ruling was politically motivated in the much-disputed trial, which is the first genocide case against a former president in Latin America. In weeks of testimony from dozens of victims, soldiers and experts, even current President Otto Perez Molina had been implicated in the massacres.

A British computer hacker affiliated to the group Lulz Security pleaded guilty Tuesday to cyberattacks on institutions including Sony, Britain's National Health Service and Rupert Murdoch's News International.

Ryan Ackroyd admitted one count of carrying out an unauthorized act to impair the operation of a computer.

Prosecutors say the 26-year-old accessed websites belonging to Sony, 20th Century Fox, the NHS, Nintendo, the Arizona State Police and News International between February and September 2011.

He will be sentenced May 14 at Southwark Crown Court in London. Other charges against him are being dropped.

Three other British hackers — 18-year-old Mustafa Al-Bassam, 20-year-old Jake Davis and Ryan Cleary, 21 — had previously pleaded guilty to launching distributed denial of service attacks on organizations including the CIA and Britain's Serious Organized Crime Agency. Denial of service attacks work by overwhelming sites with traffic.

Hong Kong's top court ruled against two Filipino domestic helpers seeking permanent residency Monday, the final decision in a case that affects tens of thousands of other foreign maids in the southern Chinese financial hub.

In a unanimous ruling, the Court of Final Appeal sided with the government's position that tight restrictions on domestic helpers mean they don't have the same status as other foreign residents, who can apply to settle permanently after seven years. Lawyers for the two had argued that an immigration provision barring domestic workers from permanent residency was unconstitutional.

The court also rejected the government's request for Beijing to have the final say in the matter, which had sparked fears of interference by China's central government in the semiautonomous region. Some saw the request as a backhanded attempt by the government to get Beijing to halt the flow of another group of unwanted migrants - children of mainland Chinese parents - while putting the city's prized judicial independence at risk.

Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, the charismatic al-Qaida spokesman, fundraiser and son-in-law to Osama bin Laden, is likely to have a vast trove of knowledge about the terror network's central command but not much useful information about current threats or plots, intelligence officials and other experts say.

Abu Ghaith pleaded not guilty Friday to conspiring to kill Americans in propaganda videos that warned of further assaults against the United States as devastating as the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Believed to be more of a strategic player in bin Laden's inner circle than an operational plotter, Abu Ghaith would be the highest-ranking al-Qaida figure to stand trial on U.S. soil since 9/11. Intelligence officials say he may be able to shed new light on al-Qaida's inner workings — concerning al-Qaida's murky dealings in Iran over the past decade, for example — but probably will have few details about specific or imminent ongoing threats.

He gave U.S. officials a 22-page statement after his Feb. 28 arrest in Jordan, according to prosecutors. They would not describe the statement.

Bearded and balding, Abu Ghaith said little during the 15-minute hearing in U.S. District Court in New York — in lower Manhattan just blocks from Ground Zero — and displayed none of the finger-wagging or strident orations that marked his propaganda in the days and months after 9/11.

Through an interpreter, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan asked whether he understood his rights. Abu Ghaith nodded and said, "Yes." Asked whether he had money to hire an attorney, he shook his head and said no. He nodded and said yes when asked whether he had signed an affidavit describing his financial situation.

Attorneys for a lesbian whose adoption request was recently denied by Puerto Rico's Supreme Court is appealing the ruling.

The woman's partner gave birth to a girl, now 12, through in vitro fertilization. Attorney Nora Vargas said Wednesday that it is in the child's best interest for the woman to adopt the girl as the second parent.

The announcement of the appeal comes two weeks after the high court voted 5-4 to uphold a law banning gay couples from adopting children.

It was the first time the court heard a case on same-sex adoptions.

Legislators in the U.S. territory are considering several proposals to extend more rights to gays and lesbians.

A court acquitted on Tuesday the frontman of a U.S. heavy metal band of causing a teenage fan's death at a concert in the Czech Republic.

Lamb of God's Randy Blythe was charged in December in Prague with causing bodily harm to another person with lethal consequences. Blythe was accused of pushing a 19-year-old who had climbed onto the stage during a 2010 concert at Prague's Abaton club.

The man hit the floor with his head and later died of a head injury.

Prague's Municipal court ruled Tuesday that Blythe was not guilty because what he did was not a crime, court spokeswoman Marketa Puci said.

Blythe, who had pleaded not guilty, acknowledged he pushed the teenager because the band doesn't tolerate any fans on the stage but said he was not aware of any injuries.

In its ruling, the court said it was the concert's organizers who are to blame for the accident, Puci said.