Posted on 07/16/2010 2:10:40 PM PDT by kronos77
PRISTINA, Kosovo — A panel of international judges on Friday decided not to extradite a Kosovo terror suspect to the United States on legal grounds and then set him free, a European Union official said.
Nicholas Hawton said the U.S. request to extradite 29-year-old ethnic Albanian Bajram Asllani did not demonstrate "well-grounded suspicions" that he plotted terrorist attacks. The panel also ruled Friday there was no valid extradition treaty between the two countries.
The extradition request was made on the basis of a 1901 treaty between the US and the former Kingdom of Serbia. In 2008, Kosovo declared independence from Serbia, a move that Serbia is still fighting. The three-member panel of judges that ruled Friday was helping out a local Kosovo court under EU supervision.
The judges ruled that "providing material support to terrorists" is not listed in the treaty as a criminal offense, so there were no grounds for Asllani's extradition, said Hawton, spokesman for the EU rule of law mission in Kosovo.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Raleigh, North Carolina, had accused Asllani, of Mitrovica, of plotting with men in North Carolina to engage in terrorism in Kosovo. The plot allegedly originated among eight people who planned attacks both at a U.S. military installation and abroad. Asllani allegedly had asked one of the U.S. suspects for money to fund a terrorist plot, prosecutors said.
In Raleigh, U.S. attorney George Holding said the decision would now be reviewed by the Supreme Court of Kosovo.
"I'm disappointed," Holding said. "However, this is just one step in the process."
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Ping!
How can the U.S. complain about that? /s
Irony anyone?
Does anybody really think justice will be served if terrorists are in the custody of our racist, blithering DOJ? If they’re free, at least there’s a chance that someone will shoot them. Our military has realized that capturing terrorists may get them disciplined or imprisoned, while the terrorists get locked up in a resort somewhere. Taking prisoners is a lose/lose.
This is sooo much irony like hot iron in the face!
/bump
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