What is Osama bin Laden's legal status?

August 24, 2005 8:23 AM

What is Osama bin Laden's legal status?

What would happen if he rolled up in a third party country (i.e. not one the US is currently occupying)? What if it had no extradition treaty with the US? (I assume there is a legal and a realpolitik answer to this question.) Could he be signed over the the international Criminal Court rather than the US? Is there solid evidence that he has actually committed crimes?

posted by biffa to law & government (11 comments total)

F*cked.

I think the question is academic. Regardless of established laws, any country that would arrest him and inform the US would bend the rules in order to benefit from the situation. It is also much more likely that they would just turn their intelligence on his location over to us and we would send someone to kill him.

If you look through the history of any country you'll see that people who go against the state have a tendency to be killed while being apprehended. Osama won't be standing trial anywhere, in the unlikely event he is caught.
posted by 517 at 8:41 AM on August 24, 2005

"alive and kicking"

Why has he not been found?
posted by bshort at 8:53 AM on August 24, 2005

Bin Laden is officially wanted by the United States in connection with the August 7, 1998 bombings of several United States embassies in Africa. Since June 1999, bin Laden has been listed as one of the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and FBI Most Wanted Terrorists.

If Bin Ladin were somehow to be publicly captured by the police forces of another nation, presumably the U.S. would seek his extradition to U.S. jurisdiction. If there was no pre-existing extradiction treaty I assume the U.S. would just negotiate for his transfer to U.S. jurisdiction. If the nation was not an ally of the U.S. and lacked a significant military force, it seems likely the implied threat of facing the same fate for refusal as the Taliban would expedite such negotiations.
posted by RichardP at 9:12 AM on August 24, 2005

If the nation was not an ally of the U.S. and lacked a significant military force, it seems likely the implied threat of facing the same fate for refusal as the Taliban would expedite such negotiations.

Yet somehow, Pakistan, a US ally and extradition partner has not given up the goods. The reason is that capturing him would potentially destabilize the warlord held northern regions of Pakistan where OBL is hiding out.
posted by Pollomacho at 9:20 AM on August 24, 2005

Dead man walking.
posted by caddis at 9:22 AM on August 24, 2005

If there was no pre-existing extradiction treaty I assume the U.S. would just negotiate for his transfer to U.S. jurisdiction.

I assume this is correct, and was going to say the same thing, but is there a precedent for this?
posted by mkultra at 10:04 AM on August 24, 2005

I assume this is correct, and was going to say the same thing, but is there a precedent for this?

It isn't uncommon for sovereign nations to negotiate the transfer of prisoners from one jurisdiction to the other's in the absence of preexisting treaties. I am sure there are many examples, but a famous example would be the negotiated transfer of Francis Gary Powers to U.S. jurisdiction from the Soviet Union in 1962 in return for Colonel Vilyam Fisher (although, in that case, the U.S. had, of course, no intention of subjecting Francis Gary Powers to criminal prosecution).
posted by RichardP at 10:32 AM on August 24, 2005

Dead man walking.

He's been walking for a long time. He's 49 years old, and will probably be eligible for the senior's discount before anything happens to him.

I'm pretty sure he considers this a fantastic success.
posted by mosch at 11:09 AM on August 24, 2005

Well, the president said, "If he thinks he can hide from the United States and our allies he will be sorely mistaken," but bin Laden's a really good hider. Maybe he's hiding out with the anthrax guy.

We tracked down and captured Mir Amir Kansi, who killed two people outside CIA headquarters in July 1993 and hid out in the same border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan where bin Laden is most likely hiding.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:12 AM on August 24, 2005

He has no legal status. Since 1994, when Saudi Arabia stripped him of his citizenship, OBL has been a "man without a state." In the current world order, as states are defined as the sole source for rights, this means he has no significant legal rights.
posted by nixerman at 11:14 AM on August 24, 2005

The International Criminal Court can require any of its members to hand over any fugitive it deems to have committed one of the crimes over which it has jurisdiction. It does not matter if the crime was committed by a national of a state who is not party to the ICC or in a country not party to the ICC. There are currently 139 members (http://www.icc-cpi.int/asp/statesparties.html) but neither the USA nor Saudi Arabia are members. So the ICC could ask the country who caught him, if it were a member, to hand him over. However, I agree with other posters. The US would get him by negotiation, threat or rendition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendition).
posted by TheRaven at 12:02 PM on August 24, 2005