Posted on 11/14/2007 8:19:01 PM PST by Graybeard58
WASHINGTON — More than 1,000 people from 85 countries who are accused of such crimes as rape, killings, torture and genocide are living in the United States, according to Department of Homeland Security figures.
America has become a haven for the world's war criminals because it lacks the laws needed to prosecute them, Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said Wednesday. There's been only one U.S. indictment of someone suspected of a serious human-rights abuse. Durbin said torture was the only serious human-rights violation that was a crime under American law when committed outside the United States by a non-American national.
"This is unacceptable. Our laws must change and our determination to end this shameful situation must become a priority," Durbin, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, said at a hearing of the subcommittee Wednesday.
He's trying to get more information about specific cases.
One is that of Juan Romagoza Arce, the director of a clinic that provides free care for the poor in Washington. In 1980, Romagoza was a young doctor caring for the poor in El Salvador during the early period of his country's civil war when the military seized him and tortured him for 22 days. An estimated 75,000 people died in the 12-year war.
Romagoza told Durbin that he was given electric shocks until he lost consciousness, then kicked and burned with cigarettes until he came to. He also told of being sodomized, nearly asphyxiated in a hood containing calcium oxide — which can cause severe shortness of breath when inhaled — and subjected to waterboarding, including being hung by his feet with his head immersed in water until he nearly drowned.
Romagoza and two other torture victims brought a civil suit in U.S. federal court in West Palm Beach, Fla., against two Salvadoran generals who moved to Florida in 1989: Jose Guillermo Garcia, who was the minister of defense, and Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, who was the director general of the Salvadoran National Guard.
In 2002, a jury found them liable for the torture of the three, and a judgment of $54.6 million was entered against them and upheld on appeal.
Romagoza said he didn't expect to see any of the money.
He testified that he'd received many threatening phone calls and letters at the time of the trial but that he'd overcome his fears and testified.
"I felt like I was in the prow of a boat and that there were many people rowing behind that were moving me into this moment," he told Durbin's panel. "I felt that if I looked back at them I'd weep, because I'd see them again, wounded, tortured, raped, naked, torn and bleeding. So I didn't look back, but I felt their support, their strength and their energy."
He said he and others were angry and frustrated that the two men "live in the same country where we have found refuge from their persecution."
Durbin said he'd send a letter asking the U.S. attorney in South Florida what was being done in the case.
"If he says he doesn't have authority, we should change the law. If he has the authority and is not using it, we should change the U.S. attorney," Durbin said.
Durbin and Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., have introduced legislation that would authorize the government to prosecute anyone found in the U.S. who's guilty of genocide, human trafficking or recruiting child soldiers.
David Scheffer is a Northwestern University law professor who was the ambassador at large for war-crimes issues during the Clinton administration. He testified that after the experience of war-crimes tribunals after World War II and international tribunals prosecuting many atrocities over the past 15 years, "one would be forgiven to assume that surely in the United States the law is now well established to enable U.S. courts — criminal and military — to investigate and prosecute the full range of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. . . .
"That, however, is not the case."
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF NOV. 14
The date of Wednesday's hearing is significant in the history of war crimes, Justice Department official Sigal P. Mandelker told the subcommittee:
On Nov. 14, 1935, the Third Reich issued regulations that deprived Germany's Jews of their citizenship and established a system to classify people as Jews based on their ancestry and affiliations.
On Nov. 14, 1945, the International Military Tribunal convened in Nuremberg, Germany, to try Nazi leaders.
On Nov. 14, 1995, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia issued its first indictments on genocide charges over the massacres of as many as 8,000 Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica. Two of the leaders indicted, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, remain fugitives.
Always a cynic, I wonder just how many of the Vietnamese and Lao refugees here would have been prosecuted under a Jimmy Carter administration.
The Sentencing Guideline Commission just ordered the release of 19,000 violent felons. Makes this look like child’s play.
Translation: We need to pass some laws so we can prosecute our military to make the nutjobs happy.
“More than 1,000 people from 85 countries who are accused of such crimes as rape, killings, torture and genocide are living in the United States..”
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Adding in Bubba and the swimmer makes it ‘more than 1,002....’
For you.
If we kick the U.N. out of the U.S. that will get rid of most of the war criminals!
I knew a few myself.
Senator: U.S. has become haven for war criminals
U.S. Senate also has become a haven for war criminals
Yes. Fraud in an immigration application can void citizenship and clear the way for deportation or extradition. But what Durbin and Coburn re talking about is something different, trying these cases in U.S. courts.
I'm not sure that would be constitutional -- trying someone for an act that was not a crime when an act was committed is ex post facto law, and that's expressly prohibited under the Constitution. Some Americans refused to participate in the Nuremberg tribunals due to constitutional concerns, but for most of the last half-century, the consensus has been that it's legal for the US to extradite to another country or to an international tribunal under theory. If the crime wasn't committed by an American, against an American or within American jurisdiction, the jurisdiction of US courts seems a little dubious to me.
"If he says he doesn't have authority, we should change the law. If he has the authority and is not using it, we should change the U.S. attorney," Durbin said.
This is the same Dick, Durbin, who was savaging the Bush administration for firing a handful of US Attorneys, yet here he is preemptively calling for the head of a US Attorney.
Turban Durbin is the most significant “war criminal” that comes to mind...
The bastard is even too stupid to STFU and hope he becomes invisible and forgotten..
The smug smarmy bastard truly needs his ass kicked.....severely.
Well there is some truth to this. There are 51 in the senate and 233 in the house.
"And that's just the current administration", said Nancy Pelosi
You are right on the money here. If the jurisdiction of a court is not carefully limited, the court will go out of control, issuing rulings on cases that it has no business looking at.
Suppose court A rules one way on a case outside its proper jusisdiction and court B rules in an opposite manner in the same case. Whose opinion counts and whose orders are followed? If both courts may address the case because they may both have jurisdiction, then the legal system can get tied up in legal Gordian knots and become filled with contradictions. From the viewpoint of the rule of law, this is highly undesirable.
Wonder how many are stationed at the UN?
Yep, that's how the Leftist bootlickers begin most of their unprovable statements.
” But what Durbin and Coburn are talking about is something different, trying these cases in U.S. courts. “
Exactly... for deportation any grounds is good,... the idea is to bring these criminals to justice here , to set an example and prevent more from coming in..is really good .... what act was not a crime back then , and ex post facto law today”.?. this is about genocide, torture, rapings and killing brutally, horrendous crimes, during the excercise of power committed by guys caught living here in the US, these types of crimes are called crimes against mankind, no matter what nationality , besides this is a move toward globalization, I am for it
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