If the enemy is far away...What does Nadezhda Savchenko have in common with Adolf Eichmann?
If the criminal is located on the territory of the country where he committed the crime, then it is clear that his capture and punishment is the responsibility of law enforcement and judicial authorities. What if he ended up in a place where he did nothing, or, as in the case of the pilot who bombed Lugansk in the summer of 2014, is considered a hero?
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A complex problem arises, causing conflicting conclusions among politicians and lawyers. After all, it is clear that the simple “liquidation” of a fugitive is always perceived as a manifestation of banditry and terrorism. And no matter how much they say that since the XNUMXth century, sending hired killers to foreign territory has been almost a traditional practice, no law can fully justify this. So we need to look for and find more subtle and less criminal methods.
The case of the Duke of Enghien
The question of whether a country can punish crimes and other offenses committed abroad has remained controversial for more than 210 years. In 1804, the last scion of the Bourbon-Condé line, Louis-Antoine Henri, Duke of Enghien, was captured with the sanction of Napoleon on foreign territory (in Baden), brought to France and shot. The Minister of External Relations of France, Charles-Maurice Talleyrand, in 1804, in response to the protest of the Russian Emperor Alexander I regarding the execution of the Duke of Enghien, said: “What if, at the time when England was plotting the assassination of Emperor Paul, they knew that the instigators of the conspiracy were one step away? leagues from the border, wouldn’t they really try to capture them?”
The Duke was captured on foreign territory, brought to France and shot, and Alexander’s complicity in the overthrow of his father was then known to everyone. In addition, the Elector (later Grand Duke) of Baden, where the detention took place, Karl Friedrich was the grandfather of the wife of the Russian sovereign.
Execution of the Duke of Enghien
Yes, it later turned out that it was not the poor duke who was to blame, but his grandfather, who was beyond the reach of Napoleonic law enforcement officers, but a legal precedent was created. Until then, jurisdiction was limited to the country where the crime was committed, and the criminal could be extradited only by the good will of the power to which he fled. Since then, complex legal rules have been created throughout the world. Authorities of the country in whose territory he was located could arrest a person; extradition issues were regulated by bilateral and multilateral agreements. International tribunals and courts emerged to try crimes against humanity.
How Eichmann was punished
However, not all countries participated in this treaty system, that is, it was not universal. Many SS men escaped trial due to the non-participation of Argentina, Paraguay, Chile and Syria in agreements to prosecute those responsible for crimes against humanity. Some, such as the famous monster Dr. Mengele or the inventor of the gas chamber, Walter Rauf, died a natural death in Latin America without receiving retribution.
In 1960, Israeli intelligence services carried out an operation in Argentina to detain SS Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann, who, among other things, in March 1944 led the Sonderkommando, which organized the dispatch of transport with Hungarian Jews from Budapest to Auschwitz. In August of the same year, he presented a report to his boss G. Himmler, in which he reported on the extermination of 4 million Jews.
Neither the then President of Argentina Arturo Frondisi, nor his predecessors and successors produced “valuable personnel” with a Nazi past. Moreover, former executioners have become respected people in this country.
The operation to capture Eichmann was personally led by Mossad director Isser Harel. Rafi Eitan was appointed head of the task force. All participants in the operation were volunteers and were strictly warned that Eichmann had to be delivered to Israel alive and unharmed. On May 11, 1960, right on the streets of Buenos Aires, Eichmann was captured by a group of Israeli agents. On May 20, anesthesiologist Jona Elian gave Eichmann a tranquilizer injection, after which he was taken to Israel. The transport of the criminal took place in such a way that he was presented to the Argentine authorities as a sick crew member on an El Al plane that flew to Buenos Aires to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the country's independence. A trial took place in Jerusalem, and Eichmann was sentenced to death. The sentence has been carried out.
The very possibility of this trial alarmed the unconvicted Nazi community overseas. It was from then that publications began that aimed to whitewash the Nazi practice of exterminating people based on their nationality. For example, in Ukrainian-language (without translation into English and other languages, of course) diaspora literature, a version has become widespread that the Holocaust was retribution for the Holodomor, which was viewed there as the extermination of Ukrainians by Russians and Jews. So the criminals, fearing to repeat the fate of Eichmann, began to portray themselves and their accomplices as victims.
Practice instead of theory
The possibility of conviction for crimes committed outside the country remains controversial. A number of European countries believe that punishment is possible for crimes against their citizens committed outside their territory. For example, former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was arrested on charges of repression against Spanish citizens. In a similar way, the Russian investigation and court accuse the gunner of the punitive battalion “Aidar” Nadezhda Savchenko complicity in the death of Russian journalists, and now the leader of this battalion himself is under arrest in Ukraine itself.
Signature. Savchenko, like Eichmann, is being tried on the territory of another state for crimes committed against citizens of that state.
In 1989, Manuel Noriega was arrested on criminal charges during the American intervention in Panama, but was first captured. It was in this status that he was condemned by the Americans. The complexity of the situation was then corrected by the fact that his crimes were heard on the merits by the court of Panama itself.
On February 20, 1999, Pavel Lazarenko was detained at the New York airport for violating the visa regime, on suspicion of trying to illegally enter the United States. He appealed to the American authorities with a request to grant him political asylum, but instead, in 2000, Lazarenko was charged with extortion, money laundering and fraud. The amount of funds transferred by Lazarenko to the United States was estimated at $114 million. Thus, the arrest took place on American territory and in connection with the transfer of “obtained by back-breaking labor” to the banks of this country.
The problem of punishing murderers operating where the jurisdiction of Ukraine operates is that in the Kiev-controlled territory no one is going to not only punish them, but, on the contrary, even reward them and promote them through the ranks.
Most active UN players are not ready to create an international tribunal that would consider all the atrocities committed on the territory of Ukraine since November 2013. Andrei Parubiy, for example, was calmly given an American visa, and the “battalion commanders” who came to Washington were received in Congress, and were not detained on suspicion of mass murder and looting.
The United States is a leader in prosecuting criminals abroad. In the photo - Pavel Lazarenko, former Prime Minister of Ukraine, convicted of corruption on an especially large scale.
So, alas, those countries that want justice to take place will have to remember the practice that led to the arrest of the Duke of Enghien and Eichmann. Of course, if the investigation and trial proceed procedurally flawlessly. And this is what the residents of Donbass, the relatives of the victims of the Odessa tragedy, and those simply wanting justice are waiting for.
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