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The Italian job UK authorities may be faced with a bit of a struggle in extraditing a man, now in Rome, for his alleged involvement in the failed July 21 terrorist attacks on the London transport system, according to this report.
So could some nice person remind me what the EU-wide arrest warrant is suppose to achieve, exactly? Oh, er, wait a minute…
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Good question. And one I haven’t heard asked on the BBC.
And that’s why they shouldn’t waste their time going after the CIA.
We could have taken care of this but, noooo.
Of course he hadn’t, the backpack this repulsive creature was carrying was obviously filled with marshmallows and confetti and intended to be a Bomb For Peace. Just wait until he gets released into the general population in HMP Parkhurst and lets see how long his “I am a peace loving muslim I wasn’t going to hurt anyone” lasts.
I think the 2 month extradition warrant is actually under the EU mutual system, God only knows how long the Italian courts would take normally – several years I would presume.
I had heard that extradition from Italy under the EU arrest warrant “should” take two weeks but that since the legislation only came into force in Italy last week everybody expects a supreme court challenge to the legality of the whole process. German courts just decided that the system was unconstitutional.
He’s a self-admitted terrorist who doesn’t approve of Western (godless) law. Although hedged around with “reservations” which he learned in the advanced, enlightened, civilised West, he has admitted he’s a terrorist. Who cares about his tender, thoughtful little psyche? Don’t they have any Flit in Italy?
And we yanks wanted to “render” all these wankers to Saudi Arabia, or lock their asses up in Gitmo, but nooooooooooooo, we couldn’t do that now, could we…
Matter of fact, that’s at the center of Italy’s pique at the U.S. right now.
I’m in favor of having more process for these a**holes, but the process has to end in long term incarceration somewhere. They aren’t freaking burglars and we can’t just let them run around on the loose. I am probably more in favor of civil liberties than the average bear, but all the innocent people on the Tube and flying on airplanes (me included) have the right to not be snuffed by the likes of this wanker, and that individual right has to count for something. Osama, meet my friend Mr. Rothbard. Um, you okay, Murray? Headache? You look a little pekid. What’s that? You were mugged by reality on the way over?
Glenn Sulmasy has a nice article on this on National Review Online. He argues that we need a new Geneva Convention to deal with transnational terrorism, since the existing structures of international law are not suitable for handling people like this, who do not clearly fit into criminal, soldier, EPW or civilian status. I’m with him on that, as long as we don’t let the jackanapes who drafted Kyoto and the Durban declaration handle the writing tasks.
Al Maviva
– Putting the ordnung in Ordered Liberty since 1987
These terrorists do not accept democracy or the rule of law, they want to overturn our system of nation states, and have their own Islamic law, yet all of a sudden when they are arrested for their crimes they imidiatly start demanding their rights under those same laws they despise, and we all say oh yes we must respect their human rights.
A new Geneva convention. Absolutely what we need. The actual treatment of prisoners in places like Guantanamo is pretty much proportionate to what the detainees are alleged to have done. If you were a foreigner with a gun on the battlefield in Afghanistan in late 2001 you shouldn’t really expect to get out of jail anytime soon. The current Geneva conventions just don’t really cover people in this sort of situation. A response of “well you are not covered by the Geneva conventions so we can do whatever we want to you,” is not tenable in the long run.
We should also be realistic and accept that some of the people detained in Guantanamo are not terrorists. The US military were paying bounties to Afghan militias for handing over “Al-Qaeda” fighters, the militias probably weren’t too picky as long as they were getting their money.
There is no reason why a new Geneva convention can’t be simply declared by the “coalition of the willing” that are fighting terrorism. That’s pretty much how the UN was established during / after WW2. The convention would need to cover how to define the status of people who are captured and how to determine a release date (if any.)
1. Have none of you guys heard of innocent until proven guilty? Or impersonal justice? The man is as entitled to a fair trial as you are.
2. In general extradition ought to be a struggle, otherwise we are all at the mercy of any state that wants to punish us and the secret police culture and arbitrary exercise of power can spread unrestrained.
“In general extradition ought to be a struggle”, writes Guy Herbert. Up to a point, Lord Copper. There is a dividing line between respecting civil liberties of the accused and taking the piss. I think we are entering latter territory. This fella seems to have a suntanned female lawyer and has no doubt been read his rights.
For what it is worth, I was opposed to the EU arrest warrant, but given that it exists, I found the prospect of delay coming from Italy decidely ironic.
Robert: these people have spent some time in detemntion camps in Afghanistan, before they were shipped to Gitmo. I would imagine that during that relatively short period they went through a “selection” process, and only the “worthy” ones were actually shipped.
Absolutely no, not at all, no way. The very last thing we need is to alter our laws in any way at all to accomodate these animals and most certainly we should not EVER give these scum any kind of special consideration. Foreign terrorists are murderers, home-grown terrorists are traitors and we have a plethora of criminal statute laws to deal with them. The IRA, because that Harold Wilson gave into their demands, were provided with special “political prisoner” facilities in Ulster prisons and effectively lived a life of luxury in prison until it was time for them to released under the Good Friday Agreement. We most certainly do not want a ‘jail for failed martyrs’ where they get special dispensation because they come under some form of special Geneva Convention.
The only ‘special consideration’ they should be allowed is the choice of which arm to have the lethal jab in. – after having their idealogy crushed in open court by clerics of their own faith.
A new Geneva convention. Absolutely what we need.
….. as long as we don’t let the jackanapes who drafted Kyoto and the Durban declaration handle the writing tasks.
Thanks to the vile UN international cooperation is dead.
There is nobody to write a “new Geneva Convention” but those UN “jackanapes”. So, no, thanks, but no.
The war against the terrorists isn’t hampered by lack of legal rules, it’s hampered by a lack of brains of governments or judges. See the case of the mad murderer that planned the Marroco explosions that killed 49 people a couple of yeras back – he enjoys the good life in London; Britain’s authorities refuse to grant Marocco’s extradiction request.
One is almost tempted to comment about Italian feet dragging: serves you right.
A response of “well you are not covered by the Geneva conventions so we can do whatever we want to you,” is not tenable in the long run.
Why not?
The Geneva Conventions has always been a fairly straightforward quid pro quo: you treat captured soldiers on our side decently, and we’ll treat captured soldiers on your side decently.
If the other side doesn’t abide by the quid, why should they recieve the benefits of the pro quo? Doing that measn there is no incentive to abide by civilized standards of behavior, and no consequence for failing to do so.
Shoot ’em and defile the corpses to bar them from paradise, I say. What are the jihadis going to do, start beheading civilians on TV? Oh, wait… they already do that.
A lot of the detainees at Guantanamo were processed through camps in Afghanistan and, no doubt, some were released. But, you have to have some doubt about the thoroughness of that process if the decision on whether or not to release is being taken by the same structure that decided to pay a bounty to the local militia. Who wants to admit that they have been tricked by the militia and have paid a bounty for a retarded 19 year old who had offened the militia warlord?
There is nothing stopping Britain, US, Australia etc. from making a simple joint declaration of how they will process and detain prisoners captured in operations such as those in Afghanistan. Right now the need for a new protocol is not so pressing. Existing criminal law is generally sufficient and Julian Taylor is very right to say that terrorist prisoners should be treated simply as criminals. The legal shortfall would occur if there was another major invasion type operation (like Afghanistan) to bring down a terrorist state. It is conceivable that this could happen somewhere like Sudan or Somalia.
Pentagon analysts have suggested that this current war against Osama-inspired fundamentalism could last two generations. I would suggest that this type of warfare is something which will be with us permanently. There is a legal vacuum surrounding detainees of the type held at Guantanamo we may as well address that.
There is nothing stopping Britain, US, Australia etc. from making a simple joint declaration of how they will process and detain prisoners captured in operations such as those in Afghanistan. Right now the need for a new protocol is not so pressing. Existing criminal law is generally sufficient and Julian Taylor is very right to say that terrorist prisoners should be treated simply as criminals.
“Existing criminal law is generally sufficient…”?
Absolute nonsense, sir. The people held in Guantanamo are not US citizens, they were not within any US jurisdiction when the activities that resulted in their incarceration were committed, and there is no precedent at all for allowing foreign nationals captured by the military in a war zone access to US criminal courts.
Furthermore, the burdern of proof would be on the prosecutors, and evidence gathered by military or intelligence sources is very likely inadmissible in US courts, or using such intelligence would reveal methods and sources the US government would prefer to remain secret. The likely result of what you propose is that the vast majority of the people currently held would go free- not because they were innocent, but because they could not be proven guilty of anything illegal under US law.
Rosignol,
Existing criminal law is generally sufficient to deal with cases such as the London bombings which is what started this discussion.
From where did you get the idea that I was suggesting that the detainees at Guantanamo should have access to US criminal courts?
My point relates to a fairly narrow set of circumstances where the military of the nations fighting terrorism come across combatants in the field. The crime of “being a Saudi with an AK47 in Afghanistan” is obviously not going to be accepted by a US criminal court. Therefore we need to establish a clear framework under which it can be handled outside criminal courts.
My suggestion is that the various governments involved simply issue a statement or protocol describing how they will deal with such detainees. If you allow your fighting men to believe that they are operating in a legal vacuum and can do what they want to detainees then you run the risk of ending up with abuses even worse than you advocated in your ealier post.
We need to stop looking at this from a soley US view point. Prisoners captured in Afghan type situations should all be dealt with in the same way regardless of nationality. John Walker Lindh should have been shipped off to the same facility as the British, Pakistani and Afghan detainees and held on the same basis.
How is it that by making it to Rome Osman Hussein has been allowed to turn himself into a pin-up boy for wannabee martyrs. Should failed suicide bombers be allowed to express the motivations behind their attacks? I’m concerned that his carefully posed picture (is he smiling?) and ‘noble’ sentiment will motivate others to follow his lead.
I get the impression that Osman has held a press conference and might even be planning to release a single?
nutJob is talking sense and giving me a cold chilll of apprehension.
Rosignol wrote,
Yes there is a precedent, known commonly as the “long-arm” U.S. statute – to aid in prosecution of those committing terrorism against American citizens overseas. It does not specify whether the person is captured or not in a warzone and was going to be used against Abu (Mohammed) Abbas until the terrorist took the easy way out and died of natural causes after 11 months in custody in Iraq.
Existing criminal law is generally sufficient to deal with cases such as the London bombings which is what started this discussion.
Yes, there is no legal ambiguity WRT jurisdiction in that case. In that situation, yes, existing criminal law is adequate. However, this is not always the case.
From where did you get the idea that I was suggesting that the detainees at Guantanamo should have access to US criminal courts?
Why, in the sentence almost immediately preceeding. Here, I’ll quote you:
‘There is nothing stopping Britain, US, Australia etc. from making a simple joint declaration of how they will process and detain prisoners captured in operations such as those in Afghanistan. Right now the need for a new protocol is not so pressing. Existing criminal law is generally sufficient…..
Where do you think the vast majority of the people in Guantanamo were captured? Afghanistan.
My point relates to a fairly narrow set of circumstances where the military of the nations fighting terrorism come across combatants in the field. The crime of “being a Saudi with an AK47 in Afghanistan” is obviously not going to be accepted by a US criminal court. Therefore we need to establish a clear framework under which it can be handled outside criminal courts.
In that case, we are in general agreement on the matter, while we obviously differ on the specifics.
My suggestion is that the various governments involved simply issue a statement or protocol describing how they will deal with such detainees. If you allow your fighting men to believe that they are operating in a legal vacuum and can do what they want to detainees then you run the risk of ending up with abuses even worse than you advocated in your ealier post.
I do not consider shooting them to be an abuse. Torture would be, of course, but a relatively humane execution (i.e., decapitation is out), no.
We need to stop looking at this from a soley US view point. Prisoners captured in Afghan type situations should all be dealt with in the same way regardless of nationality.
Why? Try to keep in mind that war is not about justice.
John Walker Lindh should have been shipped off to the same facility as the British, Pakistani and Afghan detainees and held on the same basis.
John Walker Lindh could be charged with a crime in US courts.
Some further developments re Terrorist #4. Apparently he was tracked throughout France by his mobile and steps were only taken to arrest him once he had crossed into Italy. Apparently his mobile died once he had crossed the border and they picked up on him again when he used his cousin’s SIM card in his own handset.
I wonder if the reason they didn’t seek to have him arrested in France is down to this [LINK] sort of mentality among the French.