7-26-02, Danny McBride
Detained in Spain Falls Plainly in the Main
By Danny McBride
IPS Features
Dateline Madrid: (From Reuters): “Spain cannot extradite suspected Islamic extremists to the United States while the death penalty is in force there”, judicial sources said recently. Eight suspected members of a radical Spanish Islamic group have been detained in Spain accused of involvement in the September 11th hijacked aircraft attacks. The U S has asked for them to be delivered. Spain has said no.
According to the report “High Court Judge Baltasar Garzon said in a committal order that the men, mostly Spanish citizens of Arab origin, had links to Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda group.”
Also recently, British Home Secretary David Blunkett signed a mutual extradition pact with Spain while visiting Spanish Justice Minister Angel Acebes and Deputy Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.
So, attention all terrorists!! It’s still safe to hide in Spain, because they won’t send you here for trial. But if you’re wanted in the U K, you’re outta there! In Britain they will give you life in prison, but not the death penalty. Spain abolished theirs after the Generalissimo, Francisco Franco, died. And yes, he’s still dead. (See, he took a long time to expire, and Saturday Night Live used to do this running bit about Franco- -“never mind”.)
But here, you could become carnitas al carbon, so Spain won’t extradite you even if you are a card carrying Al Qaeda member, and that, by the way, would probably mean you made the card yourself on one of the sophisticated duplicating and document forging computers these men were said to have in their possession. Mohammed Atta, the supposed ringleader of the September terrorists, visited Spain in July of this year. He probably paid for the trip on an expired Visa, because they don’t make American Express.
And this little coincidence: Barcelona was home to Syrian computer genius Nabil Han Kani who works for bin Laden, according to published reports. Nabil has disappeared in the past couple of months… Hmmm…Why you don’t suppose…?? Just a coincidence, I’m sure.
Oh, by the way, Mr Kani is said to be the creator of a technology called “steganography”. No- -nothing to do with dinosaurs. Quite the contrary. The technology is capable of penetrating electronic surveillance systems by way of concealing deciphered messages in digital files, for example, “innocent” music files. They can only be detected and decoded by someone who has a “key”. And you thought Napster was all about music.
U S intelligence has known about this for about three years, discovering the messages in correspondence between bin Laden’s organizations, but have been unable to capture the authors or decode all the messages. And I love this part- -It is thought that the September terrorists used this system to coördinate their attacks and that the codes of the U S intelligence community had been compromised. One report explains that the reason President Bush flew all over the place on September 11th and Vice President Dick Cheney was taken to a nuclear secure bunker is that time was needed to change all the codes of the entire U S intelligence community. Too bad I’ve lost my Ovaltine “Captain Midnight Secret Decoder Ring”. I’ll bet Dick Cheney had one. He’s old enough. “SQ-1 to SQ-2. Over.”
One other thing. Bin Laden is said to have invested heavily in the most advanced companies engaged in satellite and telecommunications equipment, and that one company, Space Communications, is known to belong to bin Laden. The U S National Security Agency has known for about five years that this company’s satellites surpassed by far the systems of the NSA itself. And we’re sitting around knowing this and doing nothing? Who can we shoot? Oh right. The death penalty. Then Spain will never send the detainees.
So now comes Attorney General John Ashcroft with a little plan called “Suspend Freedom” or whatever it’s called. Perhaps a game show would be in order: “Deny Your Civil Liberties”. (“Is that your final answer? Yeah, you think so. Take that!” WHACK!
“We’ll make you talk!!”) Maybe a big hit for Al-Jazeera.
In recent weeks, and especially after a November Executive Order, the U S has rounded up as many as five thousand immigrants of Middle Eastern and Arabic origin and held many for questioning simply on the basis of their names, looks or other intangibles. This is also the Executive Order that called for the military tribunals to try suspected terrorists in secret, including the disposition of their cases. “Give them a fair trial and find them guilty. Shoot them. Get rid of the body.” Sort of like Argentina or Chile in the 1970s- -or hey!! Spain under Franco.
As Senator Patrick Leahy, the Democratic Chairman of The Senate Judiciary Committee, himself a former Vermont prosecutor, has said, “Nobody up here is for crime. Nobody is for terrorists. But let’s work together to find the right tools.” Mr Ashcroft and Mr Leahy have been having a robust difference of opinion on how best to solve this problem.
Sure we want to foil terrorists before they have a chance to terrorize. But we cannot stoop to the level of a military dictatorship while doing this. And we need to tell these people’s families something. Perhaps Spain can be a help in this by just returning to its roots. After all, they’re the people who brought us the Spanish Inquisition. We need to explain the pain of remaining to detain. By George W, I think I’ve got it!
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