Oddities of World News.

Courtesy of Reuters' Oddly Enough comes the following "interesting" bits of world legal current events:

First, in Istanbul, "[a] Turkish villager who ran away with his friend's wife has offered his own wife in exchange, newspapers said on Thursday." Apparently

Farm laborer Cengiz Esme said Gulhan, his wife of 18 years, disappeared a month ago after leaving their village to go shopping in the southern Turkish town of Tarsus.

The 36-year-old said his village friend Mehmet Yaksi had telephoned him the next day and said: "I've run off with your wife .... You take my wife," the Radikal daily reported.

Esme pleaded for Gulhan to return and said he was ready to forgive her and make a fresh start elsewhere. The reports said Yaksi's wife, a mother of three, declined to comment on the situation.

I think my favorite part of that story is the fact that "Yaksi's wife . . . declined to comment." Just think of the possible law exam questions that could be written based on this fact pattern . . .

Next, a Maltese court has apparently ruled that "[r]egulations to control horse dung in the streets by forcing horse owners to tie bags under horses constituted cruelty to the animals." No more nappies.

Finally, in Baghdad "[a] co-defendant in the trial of Saddam Hussein complained on Wednesday about the quality of cigarettes the U.S. military gave him while in custody." According to the story

"We were detained by one of the wealthiest countries in the world, yet it was only after four months in detention that they gave me cigarettes," said Barzan, charged with crimes against humanity.

"And then they were of the worst quality in the world."

Saddam and his co-defendants have frequently berated the Americans and their Iraqi allies over their treatment.

The former president complained earlier in the trial about having a notepad confiscated and having to walk up several flights of stairs to the courtroom because of a broken elevator.

Perhaps it is a case of who the defendants here are, but it seems to me that when you're charged with crimes against humanity and the best you can do is complain that you didn't good enough smokes fast enough and had to climb some stairs, you probably don't have much of a chance for success. That could just be me, though.