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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!bellcore!decvax!decwrl!ucbvax!cad!hijab
From: hijab@cad.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.followup,net.politics
Subject: Re: USA vs IRA?
Message-ID: <412@cad.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Sun, 25-May-86 03:08:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: cad.412
Posted: Sun May 25 03:08:13 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 26-May-86 06:43:44 EDT
References: <40@mit-vax.UUCP> <319@cernvax.UUCP>
Organization: CAD Group, U.C. Berkeley
Lines: 39
Keywords: extradition
Xref: watmath net.followup:6430 net.politics:16391

> >>  Your government legislates, and under its legislation it protects IRA
> >>  terrorists from extradition because it holds their acts of murder
> >>  as 'political'.
> >> 
> >>  And you know damn well that it does so because of the Irish American
> >>  vote.
> >
> I believe that you will find American laws which prohibit extradition
> for "political" crimes.  
> 
> However, I kind of wonder about the judges who ruled that this law
> applys to IRA terrorists.
> -- 
> Mark Nelson

Shortly after Reagan became president there were a couple of extradition
cases in the courts; one involved a prominent IRA man, while the other
involved a young Palestinian student at a Midwest school. The IRA man
(whose name escapes me) was demanded by Britain on charges of a bombing
in Ulster. The Palestinian, Ziad Abu Ain, was demanded by Israel on a
similar charge. However, whereas the Irishman was a well known IRA figure,
Abu Ain was implicated purely by a confession obtained under questionable
circumstances from another young Palestinian -who later denied the
confession. There was such a strong sense of Abu Ain's innocence, and
the slimness of his chances for a fair trial, that the Arab-American 
community lobbied extensively to prevent his extradition. The State
Department was determined to release him to Israel, however, and interfered
repeatedly with the court proceedings. Abu Ain was eventually sent to Israel,
where he was imprisoned until his release in the well known PLO-Israel
prisoner exchange. The government did not interfere with the IRA man's
trial, and he was declared immune on the grounds that his was a political
case.

I personally consider both to have been political cases. Certainly in
the case of Abu Ain, who -if he were guilty- would be merely resisting
an acknowledged occupation. However, regardless of one's own philosophy
on the matter, there is a glaring difference in the attitude of the U.S.
government. The only logical explanation is that in both cases the 
government was yielding to the pressure of powerful domestic constituencies.