See here, and a story from the BBC here.
It’s reported that the Nigerian anti-corruption agency is set to issue an arrest warrant for Cheney in connection with a £115m bribery case involving Halliburton, the company that Cheney headed prior to assuming the role of VP.
Assuming that the international arrest warrant is issued:
a) Is there a requirement for police forces to arrest Cheney in the US after the issuance of an Interpol arrest warrant?
b) Will Cheney be arrested?
Interpol doesn’t issue arrest warrants.
Therefore, the answers to your questions are:
a) No.
b) No.
Sorry, the Raw Story article mentioned arrest warrants. I presume they’re going to issue a Red Notice then? In which case, substitute “arrest warrant” for “red notice” throughout.
Just to be clear. The BBC story doesn’t mention anything about Interpol.
The first story has a highly misleading headline, “Nigeria to charge Dick Cheney in $180 million bribery case, issue Interpol arrest warrant”. This makes it seem as if Interpol was issuing an arrest warrant.
But Interpol doesn’t issue arrest warrants, or do anything of the kind. What is happening here is that NIGERIA is issuing an arrest warrant, and simply sending notice of that arrest warrant to Interpol. Interpol is not a police agency, it is, to quote wikipedia, “an organization facilitating international police cooperation”. So now any time a law enforcement agency outside Nigeria wants to know Dick Cheney’s status in Nigeria, they can ask Interpol and find out that Dick Cheney has an outstanding arrest warrant in Nigeria.
If I were Dick Cheney’s lawyer, I’d advise him to avoid traveling to Nigeria. Outside of that he has nothing to worry about.
Man, you try to help out one down-on-his-luck Nigerian prince…
I found this on Interpol “warrants”
Not a chance in hell although he may find it difficult to travel abroad as (IIRC) Henry Kissinger did. Cheney may need to stay in the US the rest of his life else risk arrest in another country.
Cheney does face some theoretical risk if he travels to a third country, which might conceivably arrest him and extradite him to Nigeria. It could happen, witness Pinochet.
But it would take some pretty big stones to decide to do that.
The BBC story doesn’t mention Interpol that I noticed - maybe I missed it - and I can’t get the Raw Story one to load. The Beeb says the Nigerian anti-corruption agency is preparing some kind of charges against Cheney, based on his being head of Halliburton or KPR or something back in the day.
It might be interesting to see what the charges are. Or it might not. Nigeria is not the country I think of when looking for examples of the court system being completely untouched by corruption or politics.
Maybe the Nigerians can send Cheney an e-mail that starts out
"Dear Fellow God-lover Cheney -
I am wife of deceased minister in charge of Halliburton of our both interest. I am having the sume of 25,000,000 USD dollar which I am wanting to retrieve out of this so late country of troubles.
I am receiving your name of good Christian friend. In return for you assistance in this matter, I am offer you 10% of this. Please come to our captial city soonest to arrange for pick up of these moneys…’
Regards,
Shodan
It sounds like another shake down scheme (and, not so ironically, from Nigeria as other posters have pointed out). From the Raw Story article:
My emphasis. To anyone who has ever worked in Africa, this is the same old story, simply on a grander scale and using a high profile potential mark in Chaney. I mean really…bribery in Nigeria? Really? I’d say that this is a no brainer…any company working in Nigeria has been bribing officials at some level or another. That’s pretty much how the system works there, and any company NOT doing this is not going to be doing any work in the country (or will find all sorts of negative things mysteriously happening to them).
My guess is this will only be big news to…well, to quote from that same article:
It will vindicate their assertions that the international community is after Chaney (and, by extension through fantasy Bush), and give them a warm and fuzzy feeling inside that he’s a hunted man outside of the US. Otherwise it’s a joke…a sad joke at that.
As noted, Interpol doesn’t issue arrest warrants…it’s just a sharing of information (I actually didn’t know this until a recent GQ thread talked about a similar notice for the Wikileaks founder).
Not a chance in hell would anyone outside of Nigeria (or maybe a country like Cuba, North Korea, Iran or Venezuela…any of which if Chaney travels to he will get what he deserves) would arrest him for this. Even if Chaney went to Nigeria (which would be particularly foolish of him to do, even if there was no arrest warrant for him in that country), he probably would only be proforma arrested, and then shaken down for a couple million for ‘bail’ and sent on his way, knowing that his bail would simply be forfeit because he left the country or whatever other excuse they would be using to keep the money.
-XT
I’m shocked to find out that bribery is such a problem in Nigeria.
Because they’ve been perfectly fine with it for many years. The “arrest” and “bail” of the other executives sound more like extortion anyway.
Heh. I can’t even read the words ‘Nigerian anti-corruption agency’ without laughing. I’d sooner believe that Nigeria had elected Cheney its president in absentia.
I like that the prosecutor’s name is Godwin. It’s like the whole Internet is after Cheney.
Highly unlikely he’ll ever see the inside of a jail cell, though I suppose they could try to lure him in by claiming he won $14 million in the Nigerian lottery and that he has to come to Lagos to collect.
ETA: Damn, I see Shodan already beat me to it.
Cheney isn’t going anywhere due to his medical condition, least of all Nigeria. Until the US decides to prosecute him for something he can safely live out the remainder of his years which isn’t predicted to be all that long.
As much satisfaction as it would bring to many on the left to see Cheney on trial I doubt it would have the political effect many would hope for. Dragging a dying man through the courts, justified or not, doesn’t garner support. He would forever used as an example of how unsympathetic and out of touch the left can be.
Sorry that money is mine.:mad:
Pinochet was dragged into court despite his infirmities. Pretty sure I recall former Nazi war criminals being dragged to court despite old age and infirmity. Perhaps even mafia types pretending infirmity but that may have been a movie (:)).
I do not recall a lot of people complaining that the left was beating up on old men who didn’t deserve it in those cases.
Cheney is right up there with that lot and while I doubt he will ever be prosecuted he deserves to be.
It was in a movie (a few, I believe), but there certainly were cases of Mafiosos being haled into court while creeping up on death’s door. And not just the ones who were faking it, either.
As far as the Nazis go, if you’re referring to the Eichmann trials and the like, the Israelis would have put his skeleton on trial if it came down to it. Not really strong precedent there.
And Pinochet actually was released from British custody because of his infirmities before his case was heard and he died before proceedings could take place against him in Chile.
Not just Eichmann. Pretty sure (without bothering to do a Google search) I have seen an occasional, suspected, war criminal pop into the news over the last decade or two that they go after. Considering we are 60-some years past the end of WWII all those people would be deemed old.
ETA: Ok, did one very fast, very cursory Google search and here is a very recent one who is not Eichmann and not the Israelis getting them:
True true. (And now that I think of it, Eichmann wasn’t sick, IIRC. Just somewhat elderly.) Anyways, age certainly isn’t a bar to prosecution per se. Being so sick that you can’t contribute to your defense could be.
All of this probably isn’t applicable to Cheney anyway for all the reasons mentioned.
Excuse me, are you suggesting that Dick Cheney might be the vicitim of corruption? The allegation is that he funded, and profited from, corruption; that it might now work against him seems almost more just.