Posted on 05/04/2006 8:06:24 AM PDT by 68skylark
The French have apparently not let the ink dry on the jury submission from yesterday's sentencing recommendation in the Zacarias Moussaoui trial before starting to interfere with its implementation. Le Monde reports today that French officials have contacted the US in hopes of transferring Moussaoui to France in order to serve his sentence (h/t: CQ reader Leo T):
n éventuel transfèrement de Zacarias Moussaoui en France, contre qui un jury américain a requis la prison à perpétuité, pourrait être examiné dans le cadre de conventions judiciaires avec les Etats-Unis, a affirmé jeudi le ministère des Affaires étrangères français.
"La France et les Etats-Unis d'Amérique sont liés par deux conventions sur le transfèrement des personnes condamnées, une convention bilatérale du 25 janvier 1983 et une convention du Conseil de l'Europe entrée en vigueur le 1er juillet 1985", a déclaré à la presse le porte-parole du Quai d'Orsay, Jean-Baptiste Mattéi.
My high-school French is rather poor these days (thank heaven for BabelFish!), but the gist of this report is that France wants to rely on two bilateral conventions to extradite Moussaoui when sentencing is complete. They wish to explore the transfer of the al-Qaeda terrorist to French custody to serve out his sentence, supposedly under American law, but with an eye towards their own brand of justice. The conventions mentioned in the article date to 1983 and 1985, and give specific processes for the transfer of French citizens convicted in American courts, as well as the reverse.
The French show the minimum respect for American sensibilities by announcing they will wait until after the formal sentencing today to request this extradition. Moussaoui's mother has publicly pressed the Chirac government to allow the erstwhile terrorist to serve his sentence nearby, and to do so as soon as possible.
This is a small taste of what would have occurred if the jury had given Moussaoui the death penalty. The French government would have given this much more visibility even today had that occurred, and it would have continued for years until we executed the supposedly mentally ill terrorist. As it is, if the French want to confirm American opinion of their nation, then they should by all means pursue this diplomatic effort. It will give us plenty of opportunity to remind the Chirac government of its lack of fidelity in its pledge to support us if we went back to the Security Council just once more on Iraq. We can also talk about all of the bilateral efforts between Paris and Baghdad that undermined the sanctions regime, sent military arms to Saddam Hussein, and paid bribes and kickbacks to the Ba'athist regime that Oil-For-Food specifically sought to sideline.
If the French get their hands on Moussaoui, we will only wake up a few years later to French pronouncements of miracle cures and rehabilitation, and watch the video of the AQ terrorist gleefully leaving the French prison over the protests of the American government. We do not wish to rely on French tenacity in the war on terror; we learned that lesson a long time ago. Let the French try to invoke whatever treaties they want to request Moussaoui's extradition, and let them stomp their feet when we tell them to pound sand.
It may be a treaty issue.
However I don't think it will really get far.
The only way is if the state department does this as a way to embarrase the president.
BEWARE THE BUREACRATS OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT!
I like the idea of turning him over to the French. Give him a lethal dose of radiation or a nice poison and hand him over. He dies in a few months and we blame the Frogs for torturing him. What's not to like?
A transferring of Moussaoui in France could be examined, according to ParisUn possible transferring of Zacarias Moussaoui in France, against which an American jury required the prison with perpetuity, could be examined within the framework of legal conventions with the United States, affirmed Thursday the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
"France and the United States of America are bound by two conventions on the transferring of the condemned people, a bilateral convention of January 25, 1983 and one convention of the Council of Europe come into effect on July 1, 1985", declared with the press the spokesman of the Quay of Orsay, Jean-baptiste Mattéi.
"a possible request for transferring of Mr. Zacharias Moussaoui would be examined within this framework", it added.
But "in any event, it should be waited until American justice pronounced the final judgment and defined the conditions for implementation of the sorrow", concluded the spokesman.
The lawyer of the mother of Zacarias Moussaoui, Patrick Baudouin, asked for Thursday the French authorities "to intervene with the American authorities to ask" which it "can come to purge his sorrow in a French prison".
The lawyer affirmed that "it is completely possible on the technical level bus Zacarias Moussaoui is French national with the only small reserve that in France, there is not incompressible sorrow of prison with life contrary to the United States".
It however recognized that "the chance to obtain satisfaction is quasi null today".
The jury with the lawsuit of Zacarias Moussaoui, accessory to the attacks of September 11, 2001, returned Wednesday a verdict saving the capital punishment to him at the end of the first lawsuit to the United States on these attacks which made nearly 3.000 died.
Judge Leonie Brinkema, who is bound by the decision of the jury, must pronounce Thursday morning his formal judgment with the criminal reclusion with perpetuity.
I sure hope not. But Israel is not our enemy, so it is easy to keep Pollock (who, IMHO, deserves to be imprisoned). France is neither our friend nor our enemy, but with the growing Muslim influence in France, it will probably become an overt enemy in about 15 years. I would not be in the least surprised if we give Moussaoui to France, if only to rid ourselves of the problem.
Yemen is more recent, but I know I heard that some Muslims being held in a Paris(?) France jail, escaped or were busted out.
France and Germany are bound and determined to commit national suicide. I hope we aren't going to follow in their footsteps.
Gee. If the jury had done the right thing, we might have avoided the whole mess. France WON'T execute anyone. And the only way they could hold him under U.S law would have involved executing him. So maybe they would have kept their collective, halitosis ridden mouth shut. Hope somebody shanks the bastard...after shoving a pound of bacon in his mouth.
Their greatest soldier was a woman, and their greatest general was an Italian midget.
Maybe it's just the poet in me, but I can never see "French" without being reminded how it rhymes with "stench".
That's six consecutive life sentences.
I think we'll send the ashes to them in in 2525.
I don't think the French really want him, not if they're smart. A threat to burn Paris to the ground if he isn't released is a real possibility. If we keep him here maybe we could offer to release him if they promise to burn Paris to the ground.
i think you are right.
This is french posturing so they can blame the USA for something else.
The only way he should be returned to France is dropped from an airplane sans parachute from 30,000 feet, right over Paris. Maybe we can see whether we can hit the Eiffel Tower with his big turd of a carcass...........
"Envoyer quelqu'un comme lui est très cher. Pouvons-nous vous donner la
moitié de lui cette semaine, et l'autre moitié la semaine prochaine?"
LOL!!!
PS. Good French...
LOL
I think it's a fair enough proposal though...
Should have fried 'em. Give the frogs something to really moan about.
What do you suppose a President Hillary Clinton would do? Probably give him a Presidential pardon.
Sure! In a box, 35 years from now.
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