Magdy el-Nashar has been detained in Egypt as a suspect in the London bombing. All the current evidence seems to point to this man as being either the master mind or at least someone who assisted the suicide bombers in their effort to murder innocent Londoners. For a moment, let’s assume this man in fact did it. What happens next? Will the British be able to extradite Magdy el-Nashar from Egypt? If so, what then? (If not, why not…and how will the British feel about this?) Assuming the man is found guilty…what kind of punishment can he expect in England? I know there is no death penalty, so I assume the choices would be life in prison or some lesser sentence. Would there be a possibility of parole?
Finally, no idea how rowdy prisoners and prisons are in the UK so it’s just a general question. Would Magdy el-Nashar, assuming he was found guilty, be put in a maximum security prison somewhere? Would he be put in the general prison population or kept in isolation? If he were put in the general prison population would he be safe? I know in the US he probably wouldn’t survive a week and would be kept in isolation…but what about in the UK? The same?
I heard on the radio that he spent some time here in North Carolina, at NCSU. I wonder whether it’ll turn out that he committed part of his crimes in the States, and ends up being extraditable to the States. If so, in the same way that the US sometimes “renders” (I think that’s the euphemism) prisoners to Saudi Arabia for interrogation, I wonder whether England might render him to the US for punishment.
He owned the house that they made the bomb in. They rented it off him a few weeks ago. He is denying any involvement. If he is innocent then I feel a bit sorry for him really since he’s a bio-chemist and he owns the house (thus making him look as guilty as sin).
On the one hand, just because he happened to rent his house out to the bad guys doesn’t mean he knew what was going on. On the other hand, would the terrorists rent a house that wasn’t controlled by one of their own? It would be a bit risky since the landlord could come round at any time and then the plot would be foiled. Al Q are usually pretty thorough about details like this. They wouldn’t want the plot falling through because of some random incident like the landlord coming round.
In his favour (I suppose), I think he left the country a couple of weeks ago. The bomb was made of a very volatile substance, probably made shortly before it was used. You wouldn’t want that stuff sitting around for two weeks. Also he went straight to his own house in Egypt and when the police arrived there was no fuss or shooting. If he was al Q, it would seem a bit strange to just go to his own house.
Of more interest, perhaps, is that MI5 apparently logged a known al Qaida guy come into the country 2 weeks ago and leave hours before the bombing. They noted him but, because he was low level, they didn’t tail him. This seems mighty incompetent. I can understand not picking him up if you’re going to follow him but to just let him go…
The police have already mentioned that they may extradite him if they think he’s connected. He’d probably get life imprisonment with no parole.
Yeah. I think he’d get a rough ride in the general population. I expect any terrorists would be in maximum security.
Not if he might get the death penalty. EU rules forbid extraditing people to countries where they might be put to death. I wonder whether some kind of change to this rule is overdue because it means we get all the world’s assholes. Maybe we could change the rule to:
We will not extradite people to countries where they might receive the death penalty unless in the interests of national security
This would allow us to keep hold of ordinary criminals but get rid of terrorists. Egypt, Yemen and the US all want Abu Hamza. I’d love to see him spend the rest of his days sitting in a Yemen jail but we can’t extradite him because he’s wanted for murder and so may get the death penalty.
IF he is guilty, I say we have the scumbag serve his sentence in a cell with pigs. Actual pigs. Throw him some slop on the floor and have hime fight over it with the pigs. If he doesn’t eat, at least we’ll know that his last days were as unplesant for him as possible.
Could solve your problem then…assuming you guys find him guilty (if it ever gets that far), just put him (and any other terrorists you catch) in general population and lot the lads take care of things.
My guess is he wouldn’t be extradited to the US…at least not from the UK. If the US has a legitimate charge against him the best course would be to have Egypt give him to us directly.
Yeah, I’ve always been a big fan of prison justice.
I can’t see how he can have committed any crime in the US though. He was there several years ago and studied at South Carolina University for only one term. Presumably as part of his chemistry studies.
And even if the US did want him, I can’t see the UK giving him up if he’s guilty because we will want to grill him to find out what he knows.
If he goes to the UK and later to the US… it will certainly look bad on Blair. His great crime (if he is the guilty bombmaker) was in London… sending him to the US seems weakish.
Could he be the Madrid bomb maker too ? I thought the Modus Operandi was similar if not the materials and weights of the bombs. That could mean there is another mastermind behind both attacks ?
Are you saying that tongue-in-cheek? Because tolerating ‘prison justice’ is reprehensible. We have legal systems which determine the guilt and punishment for criminals. It’s not up to the local prison gang to determine how much ‘punishment’ someone should receive.
I think the tolerance of things like prison rape is obscene and a blight on penal systems wherever it occurs. If I’m sentenced to five years incarceration for my crimes, that does not mean five years of being raped daily. Or if we want to subject people to that, do it overtly and make the punishment “Five years of being Tyrone’s biatch.”
In the west, we believe in the rule of law, not the rule of men. The law is supposed to be applied dispassionately and equally. But when we let stuff like prison justice go, then suddenly the law becomes all about making sure you don’t piss off the wrong people, lest you find yourself in the wrong kind of prison or in with the wrong population. That’s just wrong.
Semi-tongue in cheek. Yes it’s reprehensible, yes we should punish perpetrators but it’s also inevitable when you put all the meanest sonsofbitches in society together in one building.
Prison serves a couple of functions - punishment and rehabilitation. The punishment aspect is made up of a couple of components. The first component is loss of liberty but the second component is that you get locked up with murderers, rapists etc. The lowest strata of society suddenly become your new social circle.
I’m not condoning prison justice just recognising that it is inevitable. There is no way of stopping it short of putting everybody in solitary confinement. If you don’t want to face prison justice then don’t go to prison. If you don’t want to do the time then don’t do the crime.
If we were to catch Bin Laden alive and lock him up and if he became Bubba’s new girlfriend, I wouldn’t lose too much sleep over it. Of course, if the authorities became aware of it they should stop it. I’m not saying it’s desirable, I’m just recognising it’s inevitability.
It’s one of the things that a prospective criminal should bear in mind before embarking on a criminal undertaking. The first thing he must bear in mind is that he might get caught. The second thing he must bear in mind is that, if caught, he will have to go through the legal process and may be incarcerated. The third thing he must bear in mind is that, once incarcerated, he’s going to be living with the worst kind of scum imaginable and the forces of law and order can only protect him to a limited extent.
Prison justice is inevitable. There’s no point in lamenting it’s existence because it’s not going to go away. It’s just a natural part of the punishment cycle. I’m not saying we should tolerate it - we should stop it where possible. I’m just saying that a prospective criminal needs to understand that it’s there. It’s just a simple fact.
Well, for myself, I was joking. No way in hell would we put a known and convicted terrorist in the general prison population…they wouldn’t survive a week IMHO, and as this is pretty well known, steps would be taken to isolate them from that danger. Oh, I can fantasize that someone like ObL being the bitch of some 300 pound tatooed guy with a beard and a large scar on his face…but it ain’t gona happen.
My question to you though (and I guess Sam) is…how do you prevent such things happening in prison? I’m not saying you have to condone them…but how do you prevent them realistically?
You can start by policing the population better. We don’t need guards that look the other way when certain types of people are mistreated.
Second, we could stop jailing people for doing drugs, taking immense pressure off the system and giving us a better chance of controlling the remaining population.
Third, well, you just do better. If that means more funds for solitary confinement facilities that are not inhumane, then that’s what you do.
I agree here completely. The rest of your suggestions seem reasonable…on the surface. But the devil is in the details and it sounds either VERY costly or impractical to me in the real world. You’d probably need to increase the number of prison guards and monitoring systems by a large factor in order to make it work.
On 7 July 2005 happened terrorist attack in London.
It was presented, that Al Qaeda executed the terrorist attack. In real, the terrorist attack did England government and announced that it was work of Iran in order to the England government could impose sanctions on Iran. England believes, that Iran is controled by mafia, which was damaged by sanctions. It‘s expected that tha mafia will send out assassin on person which was implicated into case. This person is protected by police. Assassin will get into trap, the police will catch him and uncover the mafia.
It’s a special kind of arrogance also often seen with especial British and American liberals. Problems with malnutrition in India, child-labour in Indonesia, femicide in China, or a little dirty tribal clash somewhere in black heart of Africa and you can be certain there’s no lack of such people willing to put the blame on the West. It’s a kind of passive-aggressive supremacy ideology.
