McNabb in the News (8-25-06)

Senior Principal Douglas McNabb was again interviewed by dealbreaker.com regarding Jacob Alexander:

“How does extradition happen? For that we turn once again to Douglas McNabb of McNabb Associates, a law firm specializing in extradition.

When a fugitive from the US is found in another country with which the US has an extradition agreement, the US government will often attempt to have him (or her, but we’re going to use the generic “him” here because we cannot think of many fugitive chicks off the top of our heads) extradited to face justice here. This begins with the US filing a temporary arrest warrant with the country hosting the fugitive, asking that he be detained pending a full blown extradition petition.

The hearing on a full blown extradition petition works like a probable cause hearing in the US. The accused will usually raise factual arguments intended to show that there isn’t probable cause to justify continuing to detain him or sending him to the US. He may also raise legal arguments—attempting to show that he isn’t extraditable under the relevant treaty.

“These things are very fact dependent,” McNabb tells us. “You don’t get a full-blown trial but you can argue about sufficient cause and legal issues.”^[1]

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[1] John Carney, How Not to Get Extradited, dealbreaker.com, Aug. 25, 2006.

Terrorism Crimes—Anthony Garver

An 18-year-old’s alleged statements in the Spokane County jail have earned him an investigation by an anti-terrorism task force.^[1] Anthony Garver “reportedly told fellow inmates” that he has “ties to al-Qaida” and planned to “blow up a state Department of Social and Health Services building” as well as the “upcoming Pig Out in the Park event.”^[2]

Mr. Garver is currently at Eastern State Hospital in Medical Lake “for a 90-day mental evaluation as part of an ‘involuntary commitment.’”^[3] Mr. Garver’s parents “have cooperated with investigators and consented to a search of their property in the foothills of Mount Spokane,” where three searches have allegedly yielded “two loaded ammunition clips for an AK-47… a laptop computer reportedly containing an al-Qaida training manual, a GPS locator device, maps, a mask, and other ‘survivialist-type’ gear.”^[4] There were no bomb parts or firearms found, but reportedly, “he planned to build a fertilizer and fuel oil bomb ‘just like Timothy McVeigh.’”^[5]

According to officials, the threats were taken seriously because Mr. Garver had traveled to Morocco twice in the last two years “and might have made terrorist contacts there,” though he has not been tied to any known terrorist organizations.”^[6]

According to Inland Northwest Joint Terrorism Task Force (composed of FBI agents and officers from other agencies) spokesman Norm Brown, Mr. Garver has “denied making terrorist threats.”^[7] He also has an “apparent history of mental illness,”^[8] which, as we have shown when it comes to making threats against the president, is sometimes irrelevant. In another part of the country, a West Virginia man claimed he was Osama bin Laden, threatened people with a blender, and led police on a high-speed chase in Ocean City, Maryland.^[9] That man, Tena Bergeno, is currently at Peninsula Regional Medical Center undergoing a psychiatric evaluation.

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[1] Arrested Spokane Teen Claims al-Qaida Ties, Plot to Blow Up DSHS Building, AP (via The Olympian), Aug. 24, 2006.
[2] Id.
[3] Id.
[4] Id.
[5] Id.
[6] Id.
[7] Bill Morlin, Man Allegedly Boasted of Bombs, Spokane Spokesman-Review, Aug. 24, 2006.
[8] Id.
[9] Jay Hodkins, Man Claiming to be Terrorist Leads Police in High Speed Chase, Salisbury Daily Times, Aug. 24, 2006.

McNabb in the News (8-24-06)

Senior Principal Douglas McNabb was interviewed by dealbreaker.com’s John Carney for a story on Jacob Alexander, the former CEO of Comverse.

Obviously, the best place to hide out is a country without an extradition treaty with the US. Unfortunately, there are fewer and fewer of these, and often they are not the most comfortable place to live. The next best plan is to find a country with a limited treaty, under which a fugitive can only be extradited for the most serious crimes.

But even if you cannot get to one of these countries, there’s still a difference between countries with recent extradition treaties and ones with older treaties, McNabb explains. The recent treaties define extraditable offenses very broadly—basically, the alleged action just needs to be a felony in both countries. These make extradition a relatively straight forward affair. The older treaties contain a laundry list of extraditable crimes—meaning the US must show that the alleged crime fits one of the crimes listed in the treaty. For laws of more recent provenance, this can make extradition more difficult.

“I’m not saying it’s a slam dunk you are going to lose with the modern clauses, but they certainly make it harder to contest extradition,” McNabb says.^[1]

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[1] John Carney, Sri Lanka: Probably Not Such A Good Place to Be A Fugitive<.i>, dealbreaker.com, Aug. 24, 2006.

McNabb in the News (8-23-06)

Senior Principal Douglas McNabb and C.J. Dresden have had an Opinion piece published in the International Herald Tribune.

Where is Charles Taylor’s Defense?

Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia and current guest at the International Criminal Court detention facility just outside The Hague, has been charged with 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity....

Originally jailed in Sierra Leone after his capture near Cameroon, Taylor arrived in The Hague thanks to a chain of acts of international cooperation: an agreement by the ICC to provide space and facilities for the trial, an agreement from the Netherlands to act as host country so long as another country would volunteer to take custody after the trial, agreement by Britain to house Taylor should he be convicted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and finally, the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1688 as the glue holding the web of bilateral agreements together.

On June 20, Taylor was flown to the Netherlands in the custody of the United Nations. With the transfer complete and preparations for the trial moving forward, no doubt the defense has its hands full getting ready and responding to an indictment that includes more than 30,000 pages of evidence.

But it is disturbing that the defense seems to be completely unprepared to fight, if the court of public opinion is any measure. The Special Court including the judges, the prosecutors and the registry has been unrestrained in presenting its version of the facts to the world. But Taylor's defense team has remained perfectly silent.

On the day of Taylor's transfer to The Hague, the Special Court the same Court that must attempt to render a fair, efficient, judicious process in this case posted more than a dozen digital photos, plus some video footage, of a handcuffed, heavily guarded Taylor on its Web site.

Remarkably, there have been no reports of objections filed by the defense to this highly prejudicial move by the court. Defense attorneys have not even pointed out to the hungry press that the Special Court's shameless global publication of the photos indicates that the court has dispensed with the statutory presumption of innocence until proved guilty.

The Special Court seems to have a public-relations representative speaking for it as well. David Crane, the former chief prosecutor at the Special Court, has become a media favorite during the coverage of this case. His statements, all conveying the presumption of Taylor's guilt, have gone unanswered.

During the news cycle that hit when Taylor was being transported from Sierra Leone to The Hague, Crane was given the opportunity to interpret the transfer and the attention it has garnered, including the Special Court's photos and home movies. For the people of West Africa, he said, ''to see Charles Taylor who was so feared humbled before the law, it is special because justice is being done.'' If this is what ''justice'' means, why bother with a trial and a defense at all?

Crane, who is credited with writing the original indictment against Taylor, is also on record linking unindicted people to Taylor, speculating about the existence of transnational networks of conspirators, including the Libyan dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi, and glibly blending allegations contained in the indictment with accusations of conduct that are well beyond the jurisdictional reach of the Special Court.

Like the International Criminal Court and the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the Special Court is constituted of three organs that presumably work together in the search for truth. According to Crane, however, the quest is not for the truth of the matter, but for the truth of the victims. If this bias is so deeply embedded, defense attorneys must challenge it as a threat to the fairness of the Special Court.

Finally, it is worth noting that the conditions for moving Taylor's trial to The Hague were declared met when Britain agreed to provide post-conviction accommodation, completely leaving out the possibility that Taylor will not be found guilty. The media reports did the same.

There has been no public response by Taylor's defense, and no objections filed. Do Taylor's defense attorneys find such activity acceptable and just?


Douglas C. McNabb and C.J. Dresden work for McNabb Associates, a global criminal defense firm.^[1]

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[1] Douglas C. McNabb and C.J. Dresden, Where is Charles Taylor’s Defense?, Intl. Herald Tribune, Aug. 23, 2006, at 7.

McNabb in the News (8-23-06)

Senior Principal Douglas McNabb has been quoted in a Las Vegas Review-Journal article about Dario Herrera and Mary Kincaid-Chauncey’s sentencing.

Had U.S. District Judge Larry Hicks wanted to truly scare politicians, he could have dealt even more severely with Herrera and Kincaid-Chauncey, said Douglas McNabb, a … federal criminal defense attorney.

McNabb said the judge is allowed to sentence politicians to terms longer than those called for by federal sentencing guidelines if they betray the public's trust.

"Had he done that, he would have sent a strong message to the public officials in the state that public corruption will not be tolerated," McNabb said.^[1]

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[1] Adrienne Packer, Political Corruption: Some See “Chilling” Message, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Aug. 23, 2006.

McNabb in the News (8-22-06)

Senior Principal Douglas McNabb has been quoted in an article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal regarding the sentencing of Mary Kincaid-Chauncey and Dario Herrera.

Douglas McNabb … who specializes in federal criminal cases, said Herrera was fortunate the judge did not sentence him to more than the 51 months recommended by the prosecution.

"If a result of the criminal activity of public officials causes the public to lose confidence in their government, the court could have departed upward" from the sentencing guidelines, McNabb said.

Herrera requested to be sent to a federal prison camp in Englewood, Colo. If that was unavailable, he requested placement in a camp in Florence, Colo. Why he opted for Colorado rather than a closer prison facility in California was unclear.

Herrera also pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor battery charge in August 2004, an act that the Bureau of Prisons might evaluate before placing Herrera in a camp, McNabb said. But Hicks made no mention of the charge and said Herrera had no criminal history.

"That (battery case) might not be enough to keep him out of a camp," McNabb said.

…

Neither Herrera nor Kincaid-Chauncey is likely to spend a full term in the camps, McNabb said.

Typically, inmates at federal facilities serve 85 percent of their terms. Inmates might be transferred to a halfway house for the last six months of the time served.

That means Herrera could serve 36 months in prison and six months in a halfway house. Kincaid-Chauncey might serve 19 months in the camp and six months in a halfway house.^[1]

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[1] Adrienne Packer, Political Corruption: Judge Hammers Herrera Las Vegas Review-Journal, Aug. 22, 2006.

Tamil Tigers—US Arrests

Eight individuals (some sources put it at 13^[1]) have been arrested by the FBI and charged with conspiring to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization, the Tamil Tigers.^[2]

The individuals were charged in two separate criminal complaints out of the Eastern District of New York.^[3]

In the first complaint, four of the defendants were arrested on Long Island, NY, over the weekend, “after three of them [allegedly] traveled to New York from Canada to attempt to purchase from an agent acting in an undercover capacity Russian-made SA-18 surface-to-air missiles, missile launchers, AK-47s and other weapons to be used by the LTTE in its rapidly escalating conflict against the Sri Lankan military.”^[4]

In the other complaint, multiple defendants have been charged “with providing material support to the LTTE that included the procurement of military equipment and dual use technology, fund raising and money laundering through "front" charitable organizations and U.S. bank accounts.”^[5]

The men “also are accused of plotting to bribe US State Department officials into removing the Tamil Tiger group” from the list of designated FTOs.^[6]

Only one of the suspects “was living in the United States,” and the group was made up of Canadian and Sri Lankan nationals.^[7] The one person among the group that is likely to receive the most attention is Nachimuthu Socrates, whose son’s name is Aristotle Socrates.^[8] The younger Socrates calls the charges “absurd” and that his father is innocent; “They’ve made a gross miscalculation,” he told CNN.^[9] The elder Socrates is implicated in the alleged scheme to bribe a state department official; according to the government, there were “at least five meetings [in which] the financial terms of the bribe were discussed.”^[10]

Three of the suspects are Canadian citizens, and they are allegedly seen in video surveillance hoisting missile launchers and asking about the speed of the aircraft which it could bring down.^[11]

The United States was not a target of the alleged plot.

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[1] See 13 Charged in US for Plotting to Buy Missiles for LTTE, ZeeNews.com (India), Aug. 22, 2006; Diane Struzzi, Simsbury Man Arrested for Part in Terrorist Conspiracy, Hartford Courant, Aug. 21, 2006.
[2] See US DOJ, 8 Defendants Arrested by FBI, Charged with Conspiring to Provide Material Support, Resources to Foreign Terrorist Organization, US Newswire, Aug. 21, 2006.
[3] Id.
[4] Id.
[5] Id.
[6] US Charges 8 over “Tiger Plot,” CNN, Aug. 22, 2006.
[7] Id.
[8] Id.
[9] Id.
[10] Struzzi, supra note 1.
[11] Adrian Humphreys et al., Terror Probe Nabs “Tigers,” National Post (via Canada.com), Aug. 22, 2006.