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Germany Refuses U.S. Evidence Against Sept. 11 Suspect Without Assurance He Won't Be Executed
AP via TBO.com ^ | Aug 31, 2002

Posted on 08/31/2002 1:38:51 PM PDT by Jean S

Germany Refuses U.S. Evidence Against Sept. 11 Suspect Without Assurance He Won't Be Executed, Minister Says

BERLIN (AP) - Germany has told the United States it will withhold evidence against Sept. 11 conspiracy defendant Zacarias Moussaoui unless it receives assurances that the material won't be used to secure a death penalty against him, Germany's justice minister said in remarks released Saturday.

Investigators suspect Moussaoui, who is awaiting trial in Virginia on charges of conspiracy to commit terrorism and murder federal employees, was training to become the pilot of one of the airliners hijacked for the attacks when he was arrested.

German prosecutors say he received money for flight school fees from a member of the terrorist group based in the northern city of Hamburg. But the government insists it can't bend laws forbidding the extradition of suspects to countries with the death penalty or supplying evidence that could incriminate someone facing execution.

In an interview with the Der Spiegel news weekly, Justice Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin said Germany would provide documents on Moussaoui to the United States on condition that they "may not be used for a death sentence or an execution."

A letter explaining the long-standing German position had been sent to U.S. authorities in reply to a request for information about Moussaoui, she said.

"At the moment, the United States are examining our answer and will then get back to us," she said.

Outlawing the death penalty is a requirement for membership of the 15-member European Union.

Daeubler-Gmelin insisted the exchange was not putting more pressure on relations between the Germany and the United States already strained by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's criticism of U.S. threats to attack Iraq.

Cooperation between justice authorities in the two countries is "good and trustful," Daeubler-Gmelin said. "After Sept. 11, one shouldn't try to soften that."

Moussaoui, 34, was arrested last summer at a flight school in Minnesota and became the first person to be charged directly in connection with the attacks. He is being held in custody in pending the opening of his trial in January.

U.S. law enforcement officials have said Moussaoui received two money transfers from Ramzi Binalshibh, who roomed with suicide pilot Mohamed Atta in Hamburg and wanted to take part in the hijackings, but was unable to secure a visa.

German prosecutors this week announced that they had charged another suspect, Mounir El Motassadeq, with belonging to a terror group and 3,000 counts of being an accessory to murder for his alleged support for the Hamburg terror cell.

AP-ES-08-31-02 1607EDT


TOPICS: Breaking News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: zacariasmoussaoui
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To: Mad_Tom_Rackham
As usual, the amoral socialists again fail to understand the real world. They cannot distinguish the moral difference between someone who perhaps murders another for gain or passion and an evil fiend who is part of an international conspiracy to wage war and commmit mass murder for political reasons. Liberals are fools.

It's enough to make me change my screen name to Mad_FreeReign -- I see why you're mad.

61 posted on 08/31/2002 3:25:49 PM PDT by FreeReign
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To: JeanS
Fine. German wants to try and force THEIR justice system laws on OUR country, let's play this game.

The next time the U.S. finds a German murderer or a terrorist on the loose in Germany, we won't allow them to be tried UNLESS Germany promises to execute them.

Doesn't sound too fun when we play the game, does it Mr. Schouder?

62 posted on 08/31/2002 3:40:45 PM PDT by BillyBoy
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To: JeanS
So, what did you expect from a people who elected Hitler, buried their heads in the sand while millions were shoved into ovens for "the good of the Fatherland" and then acted shocked, shocked I tell you, when they toured the death camps they financed.

These are the same people who say that Saddam is not a danger, and they wonder why we don't care what they have to say. God! These morons have learned absolutely NOTHING since the 30's, they're the same people, making the same mistakes, with the same arrogance.

What a bunch of losers.

63 posted on 08/31/2002 3:40:46 PM PDT by McGavin999
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To: MadIvan
As the article states: Outlawing the death penalty is a requirement for membership of the 15-member European Union.
***************************
I don't recall us refusing you a prisoner on that basis. You are making an assumption that because we are members of the EU (something that America encouraged Britain to be part of as far back as JFK), that we are like the Continentals. That is patently false.

I am not saying that the Britons are like the Continentals. However, Britain has signed on to the Continentals' body of law in the form of the European Union.

As a result, as the Associated Press article referenced below points out:

"Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights bars Britain and the other signatories from extraditing prisoners if they could face capital punishment."

Therefore, as the Sunday Telegraph reported in October, 2001:

"Home Secretary David Blunkett had told American officials he would approve extradition only if the United States waived the right to impose the death penalty" in the case of terrorist suspects.

It is true that Britons are not like Continentals. That is why it is so mind-boggling to me that Britain signed away even portions of it's sovereignty to the European Union.

European unity is not a bad thing. That is why the U.S. has encouraged it for decades. However, Britain should have fought harder to retain it's full sovereignty and make the Continent become more like Britain rather than allowing Britain to become more like the Continent.

Regards,
Polybius

U.S. death penalty could prove hurdle to extradition of terror suspects from Britain
Associated Press
10/8/01

European human-rights legislation may hinder Britain from extraditing suspects in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks who could face the death penalty in the United States, a government official said Sunday. Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights bars Britain and the other signatories from extraditing prisoners if they could face capital punishment. There is no death penalty in any of the 15 member nations of the European Union.

The Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported that Home Secretary David Blunkett had told American officials he would approve extradition only if the United States waived the right to impose the death penalty. U.S. officials may want to extradite Lotfi Raissi, an Algerian pilot who prosecutors say instructed some of the hijackers on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. Raissi was arrested in London Sept. 21 on a U.S. warrant and could face charges of conspiracy to murder.

On Sunday, Blunkett acknowledged that the government could "spend years losing" legal challenges if it contravened Article 3. But he said he was not seeking a "blanket commitment" from the United States that the death penalty would not be imposed. Blunkett told the British Broadcasting Corp. that officials would "find ways round the situation." He added: "We will ensure that we do what the rest of the world expect, which is to get people back to them when they're a democracy, when they have a perfectly open and accountable judicial system and where they know that someone is suspected of carrying out a terrorist act."

Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, European Union leaders agreed to streamline extradition procedures within the union and said they also wanted to make it easier for suspects to be extradited to the United States, but sought assurances from Washington that those handed over will not face death sentences. Belgian Justice Minister Marc Verwilghen said at the time that extradition could not proceed until the death penalty issue was resolved. "We always have said in the EU that the execution of the death penalty is not an option," Verwilghen said.

64 posted on 08/31/2002 3:43:23 PM PDT by Polybius
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To: JeanS
The krauts are giving us the finger again. We should have let the commies take over the country, they would be in shambles by now.
65 posted on 08/31/2002 3:51:41 PM PDT by desertcry
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To: Polybius
Thanks, for a very honest reminder.
66 posted on 08/31/2002 3:56:22 PM PDT by desertcry
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To: GVgirl
Yes, the krauts have not changed their MO, have they. Americans should stop buying mercedes, bmw, Volkses, and all german products.
67 posted on 08/31/2002 4:00:37 PM PDT by desertcry
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To: JeanS
Where in the NATO Charter does it say that an attack on one is an attack on all - unless your country has the death penalty? We defend their rotten butts for 50 years, and the first time we are attacked, they stab us in the back. We don't need them. We should cut away from them and leave them to solve their own military problems. I bet within 10 years there will be another land war in Europe, if we leave.
68 posted on 08/31/2002 4:15:11 PM PDT by ghostrider
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To: JeanS
Shoot him and send the body to Germany (COD) with a note telling them what they can do with their evidence.
69 posted on 08/31/2002 4:19:56 PM PDT by Teacher317
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To: PhilDragoo
We know what you did last century.

ROFLMBO!

70 posted on 08/31/2002 4:22:23 PM PDT by Teacher317
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To: JeanS
In an interview with the Der Spiegel news weekly, Justice Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin said Germany would provide documents on Moussaoui to the United States on condition that they "may not be used for a death sentence or an execution."

Spoken like a true schweinehund.
71 posted on 08/31/2002 4:25:03 PM PDT by Chi-townChief
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To: JeanS
Germany used to always invade France and kill people in their own land by gas and ovens (and they were innocent people killed).

Now they worry about how a killer is to be punushed? Give me a friggin break, will ya!
72 posted on 08/31/2002 4:28:07 PM PDT by A CA Guy
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To: B-Cause
Bump to you.
73 posted on 08/31/2002 4:28:56 PM PDT by Madame Dufarge
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To: MadIvan
Like reformed smokers or alcoholics, in many cases, they've lost the sense of the middle ground.

They've rationalized themselves into irrelevance.

I couldn't care less what they "think."

74 posted on 08/31/2002 4:34:31 PM PDT by Madame Dufarge
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To: PhilDragoo
Germany has placed mass murderers on the endangered species list.

Bump

75 posted on 08/31/2002 4:38:23 PM PDT by Madame Dufarge
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To: desertcry
Yes, the krauts have not changed their MO, have they. Americans should stop buying mercedes, bmw, Volkses, and all german products.

Our friend the Mercedes dealer came from Germany in 1970 and would not go back; did so once, all has changed.

Would someone say a swing from the rightist Hitler to the leftist Schroder?

Eric Hoffer, author of The True Believer, would say the same psyche, the same retreat from freedom and hunger for orders.

Joseph Stalin's New Soviet Man and Orwell's projection of newthink in 1984 posit a state robot incapable of seeing the logic in the opposing argument.

In the case of Moussaoui, the German state has forfeited sovereignty, and conforms to the European Union diktat against the death penalty.

That this German state provided the engineers to design Saddam Hussein's bunker complex is lost on Germans.

That there continues to be a thriving German trade with terrorist states causes not a ripple, not a blink.

That the withholding of evidence in the Moussaoui case increases the likelihood that terror attacks will be successsful is not considered.

How closely this parallels the French defender of Moussaoui, the fiance of Carlos the Jackal.

The Tyranny of the Two-Year-Old: there shall be humanitarianism only when I say!

Let the consequences fall on their heads, from the sky, leaving them a moment of terrible enlightenment.

76 posted on 08/31/2002 4:41:57 PM PDT by PhilDragoo
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To: Sacajaweau
" Germany isn't the only country chastising us for the death penalty in this case."

As I read it, they're not just chastising us, they're withholding evidence in order to persuade us to adopt portions of their "historically proven" legal system.

77 posted on 08/31/2002 4:48:10 PM PDT by elfman2
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To: Hugin
"I say we stop issuing visas to German citizens until they turn over the evidence. Same with any other country that withholds evidence or refuses to exradite wanted terrorists."

I like it. Start with one visa denial and double it every week. 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256,… in a couple of months no one enters.

78 posted on 08/31/2002 4:51:05 PM PDT by elfman2
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To: Lazamataz
"In that picture: Are the last few seconds of life SO PRECIOUS that the fellow sitting on the edge of the pit couldn't try -- failing, but trying anyways -- to grab the executioners gun?"

My guess it he'd been through hell, and I don't have a clue where his mind was at that moment.

79 posted on 08/31/2002 4:54:18 PM PDT by elfman2
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To: Madame Dufarge
Not quite. You've assumed they "think". They clerly don't.
80 posted on 08/31/2002 5:03:50 PM PDT by Bogey78O
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