To my knowledge, the answer is no – the only parties to the extradition treaty are the country in which he was captured and the country that’s requesting him.
I should add, though, that since part of the process of extradition is a hearing, as I said above, the extraditon target would certainly be permitted to contact his embassy and request their assistance. But I don’t believe the country of citizenship has any formal role in the extradition process.
What about dual citizenship? If the victim has both Canadian and Syrian citizenship who decides where to deport him?
To go back to the top of the thread for a moment, I was the person who actually transcribed the official transcript of Gonzales’s remarks yesterday that were quoted in the Post, and they were even more obnoxious than the snippet the Post included. Just for the sake of accuracy, his full answer to the reporter’s question was:
[bolding mine]
I now return you to your regularly scheduled pitting.
Yes, even though you don’t pass through customs, you have “entered” Country B. If you stabbed someone in the passenger lounge at JFK during your layover between Heathrow and Mexico City, you’d be arrested and tried by US officials.
I’m far from an expert on this, but if I recall correctly there is a rule about Transit Without Visas, which allow an alien to enter the country in-transit to another foreign country without first obtaining a nonimmigrant visa. But make no mistake – the mere fact thta a visa is not required under that limited circumstance does not mean you have not entered the country.
I don’t know. But I’m willing to make an educated guess. The passport that the traveller used to begin his journey would be, in my estimation, establish a rebuttable presumption of citizenship that would be used to make these decisions.
By the way – just out of curiousity, if Mr. Arar was a Canadian citizen, why in the world did Syria accept custody of him and torture him? Just at the behest of the US? That was awfully cooperative of them. I’m not being sarcastic or facetious – seriously wondering why that would be done.
Better yet, involuntarily waterboard or fingernail-extract one of those pundits or Administration figures who says he or she thinks it’s not really torture. See how long he sticks with that story.
Syria favors Shia “terrorists” and disfavors Sunni “terrorists” (The quotes are because I have no idea what the word means anymore…). If the victim was suspected of connections to AlQ, Syria would make a perfect choice, in addition to the fig leaf offered by his birth there.
“Oh, golly gosh! He was Canadian? Well, why didn’t he say so?”
So who was responsible? A toothfairy gone bad, or is there some plot to lay this at Clinton’s doorstep?
This is muddied by the fact that American airports now require you to pass through American customs when changing planes between two other countries. (Indeed, that’s when Mr. Arar got into trouble.) The question was whether or not this holds for someone who has not yet passed through American customs.
I have no doubt that what you’ve described would in fact obtain. However, the government, or at least its counsel, seems to have a peculiar interpretation of the legal status of those who have not yet passed through customs, as was discussed during Mr. Arar’s civil suit in the US:
Gonzalez’ statement, despite his being overall a worthless weaselling sack of shit, is more or less accurate, as far as it goes, which is not very far at all. Arar was deported to Jordan, not Syria. His transport into Syria was apparemtly carried out by the Jordanians.
Maybe, sometime, someone might get around to asking Mr. Gonzalez why Arar was deported there, since that was neither Canada, of which he is a citizen, nor the country from which his flight originated, and then ask him whether he happens to know from where the Jordanians got the notion that they should be sending a Canadian citizen who has been formally charged with nothing to a prison in Syria.
This of course was most likely one to ensure deniability when, or maybe in case, Mr. Arar ever resurfaced. There is, IMO, absolutely no chance whatever that this administration will admit any responsibility for what happened to him. In my view the most optimistic outcome possible would be that a later session of Congress or another adminstration might, after several years of relentless lobbying, agree to hold a review of the case and, after a couple more years of cogitation, issue a report saying that it does indeed seem possible that a regrettable error might have been made, although it’s all a bit ambiguous, and that we’ll try real hard not to let it happen again, if indeed it did happen the first time.
He was born in Syria, so there might be some history there. Perhaps he comes from a family that is not in that government’s best favor, so to speak. Just speculating, of course. I think it would be pussling if he had been sent to Egypt or Pakistan, for example, but there could be any number of reasons that Syria might be interested in an ex-Syrian now living in the West
Just saw a clip of Bush talking about the Geneva Conventions. He quoted from Common Article Three, where it prohibits “outrages upon personal dignity.” He got that petulant-little-boy, almost pouty look he gets, as if the world is just being mean to him, and whined that it was too vague. I think he actually said, “What does that mean?”
It was one of the innumerable moments provided by this administration, in which I have to do an internal reality check and remind myself that I’m not watching a vicious political satire set in a fictional America run by a gang of incompetent criminals. I can close my eyes for a moment and entertain that fantasy (that it’s fiction), but when I open them, there he is again. God, I hate that sack of shit.
I don’t see why this is so puzzling. The “evidence” against Mr. Arar, to use the word lightly, was that he once co-signed a lease with Abdullah Almaki, a Syrian-Canadian who was suspected of having links to al-Qaeda. It seems fairly clear to me: if the Canadian and/or American intelligence agencies told Syrian authorities that Mr. Arar had connections, however remote (and ultimately preposterous), to a Syrian al-Qaeda cell, why wouldn’t the Syrian authorities then act on that supposition? Remember this was back in 2002, when Syria was probably more eager to be on the United States’ good side than they are now.
What’s puzzling is why more of a hue and cry about the process of extraordinary rendition…i.e., the United State’s hand in this…wasn’t raised at the time. Syria’s actions in this were utterly predictable once Mr. Arar was sent on a plane to Syria via Jordan.
About “not being in the government’s good favor”: Mr. Arar left Syria at the age of 17 to avoid compulsory military service. As far as anyone knows, that’s the extent of his slights against the Syrian state.
Perhaps we simply paid them. I wonder if ten years from now we’ll be discussing the “guns for torture” scandal ?
I’m not outraged. I’m disgusted, horrified, and thoroughly, completely depressed at what our country is doing. At what we’ve become. I don’t know whether to cry or vomit.
If this continues-will the US even be worth defending?*
Merijeek, what is your problem? I don’t always agree with John Mace and Airman Doors, but they’re decent, reasonable people. I’ve met Airman on a few occassions and he’s good people.
*note-obvious hyperbole. I’m not advocating that the US fall to the terrorists.
I think Dave’s problem is that his reasoning compels him to agree with people he can’t stand: us. “Yeah, OK, yer right, fuck you anyway!”
Let us examine some facts:
The Canadians tell the US that this guy who moved from Syria to Canada when he was 17 is actually a dangerous radical, an Al Quaeda member, and was in DC on 9/11.
They said this because they saw him talking to two other people that they were watching, he refused to be interviewed and fled to Tunisia and had known dealings with Bin Laden associates.
So, the US picks this guy up and sends him back to Syria. Did we know he was a Canadian citizen? Did the Canadians tell us that? Did they claim him?
He claims he was tortured there and kept in a “Coffin sized” box for ten months. I have to confess that last bit a little incredible. Ten months in a coffin?
No matter.
Anyway, they say they overstated his “casual” connections with Bin Laden associates, and really had no idea that the US would react strongly to this information we were fed. :rolleyes:
Now personally, I have no sympathy for the idea of deliberately sending suspects to other countries so they can be tortured. It’s wrong.
Is that what happened here. It seems that an awful lot of this report and testimony is classified so we don’t know the whole story.
Anyway, I guess my point is that the Canadians fuck up massively like this, and RTF blames Bush.
Not one fucking word against the Canadians, and you write a misleading title suggesting that this guy was tortured by the administration, when, as far as you know, we thought we were sending him home.
I’m really at a loss. Is it possible and even likely that the US acted badly in this? Absolutely.
Jesus Christ, man. Apply some acumen and insight into this thing and lay the blame appropriately.
Everything is not Bush’s fault.
The old citerino? Linkeroo? Some substantiation for this scenario?