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
It's enough to make me change my screen name to Mad_FreeReign -- I see why you're mad.
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?
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.
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.
ROFLMBO!
They've rationalized themselves into irrelevance.
I couldn't care less what they "think."
Bump
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.
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.
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.
My guess it he'd been through hell, and I don't have a clue where his mind was at that moment.
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