Does the U.S. have legal right to try Convicted Lockerbie bomber again?

The press keeps squawking and whining that the Lockerbie bomber should be brought to the U.S.

For What? :confused:

He was convicted already and imprisoned in Scotland. They choose to release him and return to Libya.

Does the U.S. have the legal jurisdiction to prosecute him again? What is the international law on this?

Sure, just as soon as we hammer out the finer details of an extradition treaty with Libya.

In the unlikely event that does happen, I’m sure we could find something to charge him with that wouldn’t violate double jeopardy, if such a concern even exists for verdicts handed down by a court in another nation.

It’s not unlikely at all, the new government formed by the National Transition Council is quite likely to sign an extradition treaty. It will probably be a condition of getting aid to rebuild.

Prosecution in a foreign jurisdiction doesn’t implicate double jeopardy. If he violated U.S. law but has never stood trial in U.S. courts, there’s nothing stopping us from prosecuting him except extradition.

We have frozen $30 billion in Libyan assets.They don’t need aid. Now, we could place conditions on releasing those assets, but they have billions that are frozen by other countries that may become available before the US funds are released, assets that exceed what is held here.

As pravnik points out, double jeopardy protects you against dual verdicts from the same sovereign. It doesn’t even forbid state and federal verdicts arising from the same act, much less get stopped because of a foreign verdict.

I assume killing a US citizen even overseas is a crime in the USA. Otherwise, IIRC, airline crimes same as piracy can be prosecuted anywhere.

Ok not aid, but so far the NTC has expressed gratitude towards the west and NATO, theres no reason to believe they wouldn’t be friendly and it doesn’t seem unreasonable that there could be an extradition treaty.

There could well be a Libya-US extradition treaty, but it doesn’t follow that it would cover the extradition of this guy. Double jeopardy may not be a problem from a US point of view, but it certainly will from a Libyan point of view. They have already extradited him on this charge, and he has been tried, and convicted in a somewhat iffy fashion, and sentenced, and served considerable time. Is he now to be extradited gain to face a new trial, conviction, sentence, etc for the same matter?

Would the US government extradite a US citizen if the position were reversed? I’m inclined to doubt it.

If the new Libyan government is remotely serious about establishing democracy, human rights and the rule of law, then it will have a major problem extraditing this man to the US.

If, on the other hand, it wants to confirm all the accusations that it is just a client dictatorship of NATO’s . . .

One would hope not. Quite apart from the fact that Megrahi was almost certainly innocent, he’s been tried and convicted in the jurisdiction where the crime took place. It’s none of the US’s business.

But it’s possible for more than one country to have jurisdiction over a crime. (See this recent thread on the topic: Shooting a Canadian from America.) Here, the crime involved a US aircraft, operated by PanAm.

So, the question becomes: Does US federal law assert jurisdiction over crimes committed on American airplanes?

No, the question is whether Libya or Scotland consider that the US has jurisdiction over this particular crime, committed in Scotland, for which a Libyan citizen who is now in Libya was convicted.

Still ignoring the fact that he was almost certainly innocent, a fact that the US seems determined to ignore for some reason.

Scotland’s views on the issue are not relevant, as the individual is no longer under Scottish control. The Scottish courts cannot bar an assertion of jurisdiction by a different sovereign nation.

Libya’s views on the US claim to jurisdiction may become relevant in the event the US requests his extradition.

Scotland’s, or rather the UK’s, views should be relevant on a diplomatic level. In practice, sadly, they won’t mean a great deal.

One would hope that the US is better than trying to extradite a dying man who has already been punished for a crime he almost certainly didn’t commit, purely for reasons of revenge regardless of the target. Sadly again, it probably isn’t.

The US could probably bully the potential new Libyan government into extraditing him. If they do, it will be one of the most immoral acts it has ever commited.

He’s outside Scotland now, but he was released on licence and theoretically is still under their lega lcontrol, in that he could be recalled if he broke the terms of his licence.

That gives him a claim to exercise jurisdiction over him, but not an exclusive claim. So if he were to commit a crime in Libya, he could be tried and sentenced there. Or if someone sought his extradition to a third country for an unrelated crime, the fact that he is released on licence from a Scottish prison would not be a bar to extradition.

Someone will come along with a cite, I’m sure, but federal law prohibits the murder of a U.S. National anywhere in the world. What I’m not sure about is if that law was in place in 1988 when the Lockerbie attack happened.

I guess this will be a test for the new rebel government. If they want to harbor a murderer, then I guess NATO will be doing this same bombing exercise again in a few years.

But see this thread – about how the “Lockerbie bomber” may actually very well be innocent. (Note: I am very skeptical of any “conspiracy theory”, but if that OP is true, this one could actually have merit.)

This is GQ, NOT Great Debates, so don’t debate this here. I just wanted to throw out the possibility that the US doubts that they have enough evidence to convict the “Lockerbie bomber”, and so may be looking for ways to avoid having to try him again. If so, they’ll have to be subtle about how they go about this. It seems to me that they will embarrass the Scottish/UK government either way: If they try and re-convict, it would show them up for letting him go early; if they conspicuously fail to re-try him when and if they have an obvious opportunity to – or, worse, if they do retry him and fail to convict – then that would show them up for having tried him in the first place.

Similar case is Daniel Noriega, former Panama ruler. Brought to the US, convicted, and jailed. Upon end of term, the US recognized France’s extradition claim and off to the next country for trial on their charges.

Has Al-Megrahi even been found?

Fascinating insight.

On the legal question, “Does the U.S. have legal right to try Convicted Lockerbie bomber again?” however, I’m not sure how it’s responsive.

The answer to that question is yes. In United States v. Bowman, 260 U.S. 94 (1922), the Supreme Court laid out a test for determining if a particular statute had extraterritorial application, and without getting into other details, a statute has international application if Congress explicitly says it does.

18 U.S.C. § 7 provides that the “Special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States” reaches, inter alia, “…Any aircraft belonging in whole or in part to the United States, or any citizen thereof, or to any corporation created by or under the laws of the United States, or any State, Territory, district, or possession thereof…”

Other sections of federal law cover murder of US nationals within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.

So the US has federal criminal laws that cover the conduct alleged to have occurred.

Can the US try Megrahi? Yes. He was indicted in 1991 by a US grand jury. That means there was a legal determination that probable cause existed.

You say he’s innocent. The purpose of a trial is for the government to prove each and every element of the crime against him beyond a reasonable doubt. But to start the trial, what’s necessary is a crime under US law, and a finding of probable cause by a grand jury.

Since both of those ingredients exist, and since foreign convictions do not operate as a double jeopardy bar to US prosecutions, the factual answer to the question is “yes.”

Right?