TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/050189/05018900.031

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 5.4 KB | 107 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 42

Bringing Them Back to Justice


Extradition can be a breeze -- or a byzantine business


    The arm of American law is sometimes longer than many
lawbreakers imagine, and last week it reached around the world
to seize two very different suspects. At the request of the
U.S., Swiss authorities went to the posh Schweizerhof Hotel in
Bern and arrested Adnan Khashoggi, the Saudi millionaire and
arms dealer implicated in the Iran-contra scandal. Khashoggi is
wanted in New York City on racketeering charges stemming from
real estate dealings involving former Philippine President
Ferdinand Marcos.

    A day later, Mexican police nabbed Ramon Salcido, 28, a
winery worker accused of a gruesome shooting and slashing
rampage in Sonoma County, Calif., two weeks ago that left seven
people dead and terrorized residents. Among the victims were
Salcido's wife and two daughters, ages 4 and 1. A third
daughter, 3, barely survived a throat slitting. Suspecting that
Salcido might flee to his native country, U.S. officials alerted
Mexican authorities, who caught him at a railroad station near
Los Mochis.

    The arrests triggered the legal machinery for returning the
suspects to the U.S. for trial. Most extraditions involving
criminal suspects are relatively simple, and Salcido's case
turned out to be exceedingly so. Even before proceedings
started, Salcido asked to return to the U.S., and he was whisked
back on a plane lent to authorities by Peanuts cartoonist
Charles Schulz. But not all extraditions are that uncomplicated.
For well-financed and influential fugitives like Khashoggi, who
have access to top legal talent, the process can drag out for
months. Soon after Khashoggi's arrest, his U.S. lawyer landed
in Bern, and his Swiss attorney announced, "We intend to look
at all the legal angles open to us."

    At a time of easy and relatively inexpensive international
travel, extradition has become a common procedure. American
officials are involved in more than 1,000 cases around the
world, either seeking the return of suspects to the U.S. or
responding to the requests of other nations. The U.S., for
example, is expected to deport Hector Burgueno Fragoso to
Mexico. He was found last week in Tucson, and is a prime suspect
in the drug-related torture and slaying of twelve people just
across the border. The extradition process is usually governed
by individual treaties between countries, each with its own
special provisions. The U.S. alone has signed agreements with
more than 100 nations, though not with some key countries like
the U.S.S.R. or Iran. Suspected drug lord Pablo Escobar Gaviria
remains in Colombia because that country has yet to properly
ratify its treaty with the U.S.

    The thorniest extradition disputes involve international
terrorism. The "political-offense exemption," a centuries-old
human-rights provision of international law, excludes political
agitators and dissidents from extradition. This standard,
though, can be twisted, and suspects considered terrorists by
one nation may be freedom fighters to another. Complicating
matters further are the threats and bribes that sometimes engulf
the cases.

    In 1988 Mexico refused to turn over to the U.S. William
Morales, a Puerto Rican nationalist convicted of illegally
transporting explosives. Mexico called Morales a "political
fighter for the independence of Puerto Rico" and let him flee
to Cuba. The year before, West German officials refused to give
up Mohammed Ali Hammadi, who was wanted for the execution of
U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem during a 1985 TWA hijacking. Bonn
haled him instead into its own juvenile courts (Hammadi claims
he was 16 at the time).

    The U.S. Government itself has on occasion declined to
extradite some suspected terrorists. In 1981 it refused to hand
over Desmond Mackin, an I.R.A. member, to Britain, and it is
now reviewing the case of I.R.A. fighter Joseph Doherty, an
escapee from a Belfast prison.

    The U.S. is currently involved in a case that it hopes will
change attitudes. Last week the Greek Supreme Court heard a
U.S. application for the extradition of Mohammed Rashid, a
suspected Palestinian guerrilla. Rashid has been charged with
planting a bomb on a Pan Am flight from Tokyo to Honolulu in
1982 that killed one passenger and wounded 15. American
officials are hoping that the Rashid case can be a first. Says
one: "We hope that terrorists will start running out of places
to go."

    Precedent, though, is not encouraging. Last year the Greek
Justice Minister overruled a court decision favoring an Italian
extradition request for Palestinian Abdel Osama Al-Zomar,
wanted for a bloody attack on a Rome synagogue that killed a
two-year-old boy and wounded 34 people. The Minister decreed
that Al-Zomar's actions fell "within the domain of the struggle
to regain the independence of his homeland." Such frustrating
episodes may explain why U.S. authorities occasionally resort
to more subterranean alternatives to extradition. In 1987
Lebanese plane hijacker Fawaz Younis was lured out of Cyprus by
U.S. agents posing as narcotics traffickers. They persuaded him
to discuss a drug deal on the yacht Skunk Kilo as it plied
international waters. Once aboard, the agents handcuffed Younis
and promptly shipped him back to the U.S. Last month he was
convicted in Washington.