The US has the technical capability and the international political power to do something like this. Somebody traveling literally on the other side of the world and poof! in jail in a foreign country.
Of course the US government has tremendous power inside the US, but this ability to reach around the world… Combine this with the fines to overseas banks and I can’t see the outcome. Either the US will clean up the world, or the parts they care about, or the world will push back. There has to be a reaction to this kind of reach.
I just don’t know what to make of this.
Any ideas?
My point is that there were a few legal steps that were lightly skipped over by the grateful Maldive authorities. The cynic in me wonders what they were so grateful for.
I’m not clear on why the link to Interpol. The report seems to be saying that this was U.S. authorities arresting a Russian citizen on Maldive soil, with Maldive cooperation, and transporting him immediately to U.S. soil. I don’t see where Interpol was involved.
I just don’t know. Is there a problem or not?
For this instance-they individual clearly needs to be held accountable for his actions. Picking this person up isn’t the major event in this case.
The fact that somebody in the US can look at a computer screen and essentially see that a wanted man is traveling through an airport literally on the other side of the world-and the US Gov’t can act on that information. Talk about sci-fi. I just didn’t think this capability existed outside of Hollywood.
Thinking about this some more, one shouldn’t assume that this is some kind of real-time operation. The US may have been setting this up for months, just waiting for the target to use that particular (or one of several) airports. This all could have been done with paper and pencil, no sci-fi needed.
Like I said, I just don’t know if there is an issue here-perhaps not.
Depends on how you look at it. Russia has a huge problem with it, or at least claims they do. From their perspective, one of their citizens was “kidnapped” by the U.S. government. I suspect the defendant also has a huge problem with it. He’s in jail, and likely on his way to prison. Obviously, the U.S. has no problem with it, since they did it. I doubt a U.S. court will have a problem with it.
It will be interesting to see how things progress. Russia isn’t likely to impose sanctions on the U.S., but they may retaliate by kicking a U.S. diplomat out of their country, or imposing sanctions on Maldives…
People in spy novels and movies have been using fake names to buy plane tickets for decades now to avoid this exact thing happening. I have to kind of assume the government knew it was something that could work, so I’m not really clear what the excitement here is all about… this could have happened in 1970.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but according to the US Constitution, a person who “clearly needs to be held accountable” is still subject do due process and the presumption of innocence. Furthermore, there are a lot of things that are “right”, but are “clearly seen” to be wrong, in the eyes of the beholder, which is why we have a Constitution in the first place.
What part of the Constitution do you feel has been violated here? Feel free to include citations to controlling legal authority to support your answer.
The US Constitution doesn’t apply to the Government if the Maldives. If they decided to extradite or deport the fellow informally, how does it infringe the US Constitution?
Yeah, assuming that he’s tried (and not sent to Guantanamo), I have no issue with a foreign country extraditing to us a citizen of a foreign country. I’ll reiterate, I expect him to receive a fair and timely trial.
But the point seems to be that they didn’t extradite, they just looked the other way. The formal extradition process is one of the legal steps that was skipped, as well as (presumably) informing the Russian Embassy that one of their citizens was being extradited.
The Maldivians are allowed to do whatever they want in their own country. If what they want is to help out the US, that’s their prerogative. And hardly surprising, given that we’re the most powerful country in the world, and everyone likes making friends with powerful folks. I’m not sure what’s new about this.
I am not an expert in Maldivan law, or international law. I’m only going off of the implications in the linked article. If you know that the Maldives routinely extradite without formal procedures, well and good. It seems unlikely to me, though.
I’m pretty sure it is customary to allow foreign citizens access to their embassy upon arrest, but maybe not, or maybe it’s sufficient if the embassy of the [del]abducting[/del]—sorry, arresting country provides that access.