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Time - Man of the Year
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1992-09-24
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THE WEEK, Page 30NATIONLong Arm of the Law
A decision to uphold an international kidnapping alarms Latin
America
The U.S. high court reached across American borders last week
and tweaked a neighbor's nose. In a 6-to-3 opinion, Chief
Justice William Rehnquist wrote that a "forcible abduction" from
a foreign country -- in this case, Mexico -- does not prohibit
a defendant's trial in the U.S. "for violation of this country's
criminal laws."
The case involved Dr. Humberto Alvarez-Machain, a
gynecologist who two years ago was dragged from his Guadalajara
office by Mexican bounty hunters, flown to El Paso and handed
over to agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
Alvarez-Machain still awaits trial in Los Angeles on federal
charges of conspiring to torture and kill dea agent Enrique
Camarena, kidnapped and murdered in Guadalajara in 1985. The
doctor allegedly injected Camarena with lidocaine, which kept
his heart going to prolong his torture and interrogation by
Mexican officials and drug kingpins.
Attorney General William Barr called the landmark decision
"an important victory . . . against terrorists and
narcotraffickers." But Justice John Paul Stevens, who was joined
in his dissent by Harry Blackmun and Sandra Day O'Connor, warned
that "most courts throughout the civilized world will be deeply
disturbed by the `monstrous' decision the court announces
today."
Certainly the Mexicans -- and many other Latin Americans
-- were upset. Calling the ruling "invalid and unacceptable,"
Mexico threatened to suspend antidrug cooperation with the U.S.
-- a threat rescinded after Washington offered assurances that
its sovereignty would be respected in the future. But the
diplomatic dust had hardly settled when Mexican officials
charged that on June 13 agents from the U.S. crossed the border,
seized Teodulo Romo Lopez and returned him to Tucson to face
bail-jumping and cocaine-trafficking charges. The Salinas
government quickly protested.