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host · 12-22-2005, 08:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lebell

There is something I don't understand here.

Some of you complain bitterly when Clinton's blow job and subsequent lie is brought up in relationship to the current administration.

Yet here we are talking about what the US has or has not done in the past as if it somehow has bearing on this.

All I'm saying is that everyone (myself included) ought to try to be consistent.

As to this issue, I am also stunned that somehow this is being seen as anything other than a crime by anyone. Yes, I know that political realities make things not black and white, but maybe that's my own miopic vision.

I personally am willing to cut Bush *some* slack because I think that our anti-terrorist efforts require it........

.....Is Germany engaged in what we are doing here? Using someone to further their political interests?

Are our left leaning members supporting that while they decry when Bush does it?

Are our right leaning members decrying it while they support Bush in it?
Interesting.......

1.) The U.S. could have had Hamadi in it's custody, from 1987, and into the future, if not for it's unwillingness to join the community of civilized nations that has banned the death penalty. John Kerry was attacked in GOP campaign ads last year for making the same argument in a 1996 campaign debate.

It is quite possible that the Bush administration has negated through the destruction of it's own integrity and reputation, the new "climate" that Kerry described, He told the Boston Globe on Dec. 18, 2002 that anti-death penalty countries would be more willing to turn over terrorists after the 9/11 attacks: “I think 9/11 has changed the capacity for extradition.”

Since a strong argument can now be made that Bush has squandered most potential foreign responses of good will and co-operation in the fight against "terr-urrr", that it might be time to shelve the "all or nothing" death penalty policy that, instead of serving as a societal revenge and prosecutorial intimidation tool in the failed U.S. extradition of Hamadi, allowed him to "walk free" at age 40, while Robert Stethem never got to live his adult life?

2.) I had tears in my eyes when I read the WaPo editorial describing the last heroic moments of 23 year old Navy diver Robert Stethem's life. What does Hamadi's release say about a country that put it's all or nothing policy of execution as a sentencing option, ahead of it's obligation and priority to see to it that Hamadi never experienced life as a free man again?

3.) It appears that Hamadi was tried in a German juvenile court, because he was just under age 21 when the air piracy and murder crimes were committed. The Bush administration's own, Oct. 11, 2001 PR, stated,
"Mohammed Ali Hamadi, confessed to his role while on trial in West Germany in 1988, and named Izz-al-Din as one of Stethem's killers."

Izz-Al-Din is apparently still at large. From a German perspective, Hamadi was a minor, tried in a juvenile court and he co-operated by naming a conspirator who he claimed was Robert Stehem's actual killer.

4.) Germany has endured threats and kidnappings over the years for it's prosecution and confinement of Hamadi. Maybe German officials were worn down by nineteen years of dealing with U.S. policies that left Germany with no choice but to prosecute and imprison Hamadi for crimes he committed against U.S. citizens and U.S. assets. U.S. death penalty policy has closed the door to extraditions from western European countries.

There was a growing animosity between Bush and Germans reported in May, 2002. It is not hard to imagine, in view of Bush's approval among Americans today, what it must be like from a German perspective, now:

Quote:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/bush/story...719888,00.html
Bush comes face to face with Europe's distrust

President's tour appears unlikely to lift relations from historic low

Julian Borger in Washington, Ian Black in Brussels and Patrick Wintour
Wednesday May 22, 2002
The Guardian

George Bush flies into Berlin tonight to face an array of European allies who have grown increasingly irritated and apprehensive about his leadership.

The last time he crossed the Atlantic, he was jeered as the "toxic Texan" for his withdrawal from the Kyoto global warming accord. This time, the stakes are much higher and the chanting crowds of European demonstrators are unlikely to be so polite............

Quote:

One Hamadi arrives in Lebanon
The Washington Times
August 7, 1993
Author: Rima Salameh; ASSOCIATED PRESS
Estimated printed pages: 1

BEIRUT - Abbas Hamadi arrived here yesterday after being granted early release from the German prison where he had served more than five years for kidnapping two Germans in an attempt to free his terrorist brother.
There had been wide speculation that Abbas Hamadi , who belongs to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, or Party of God, was freed as part of a deal with the Bonn government that led to the release of two German hostages in Lebanon in June.

But federal Justice Minister Sabine Leutheuser-Schnarrenberger repeated the government's longstanding denial on German national television yesterday, insisting "there was no deal."

Hamadi had an emotional reunion at Beirut airport with his older brother, Abdul Hadi Hamadi, who heads Hezbollah's security apparatus. The brothers burst into tears as they hugged each other. One of the Hamadi sisters, her husband and a handful of relatives were also at the airport.

The Lebanese government issued an amnesty in 1991 for crimes committed during the country's 1975-1990 civil war and is expected to decide shortly whether Abbas Hamadi is covered by it.

A Duesseldorf court sentenced Abbas Hamadi to 13 years in prison for the kidnapping of German businessman Rudolf Cordes and electrical engineer Alfred Schmidt in January 1987. Both kidnap victims were released months later.

The abduction was designed to barter the two German hostages for the freedom of another Hamadi brother, Mohammed Ali, who was sentenced in May 1987 to life imprisonment for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA airliner and the killing of U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem.

The United States had demanded Mohammed Hamadi's extradition. However, the Bonn government refused, saying the country's laws ban handing over defendants to countries where they could face the death penalty.

Quote:

http://www.factcheck.org/article226.html#
Anti-Kerry Ad Highlights Changes On Welfare, Death Penalty

Club for Growth PAC ad also recycles some misleading tax claims we've de-bunked before.

July 29, 2004

The ad also gets it right when it says Kerry still opposed the policy seven years later in 1996. During a Sept. 16, 1996 Senate campaign debate between Kerry and then-Massachusetts Governor William Weld, Kerry said anti-death penalty countries wouldn’t allow the U.S. to extradite suspected terrorists who could be put to death. As quoted by the Boston Globe:

Kerry: Your policy (the death penalty) would amount to a terrorist protection policy. Mine would put them in jail.

That, of course, was long before September 11, 2001. Kerry now supports the death penalty for terrorists:

Kerry: We are talking about people who have declared war on our nation, and just as I was prepared to kill people personally and collectively in Vietnam…I support killing people who declare war on our country .

So Kerry’s position did change -- though he still opposes the death penalty in other cases. Was Kerry simply "blowing in the wind" of public outrage? His explanation is that he responded to changed facts, not changed public opinion. He told the Boston Globe on Dec. 18, 2002 that anti-death penalty countries would be more willing to turn over terrorists after the 9/11 attacks: “I think 9/11 has changed the capacity for extradition.”

Quote:

TRUTH FROM A TRIAL
Washington Post
January 27, 1989
Estimated printed pages: 2

THERE WAS a news report this week from Europe that was both interesting and moving, and since the press didn't make much of it, we'd like to relate it here, because it shouldn't pass unnoticed. It concerned Robert Dean Stethem, the young Navy diver from Waldorf, Md., who was cruelly beaten and then shot to death during the hijacking of a TWA flight in June 1985. One of the hijackers, Mohammed Ali Hamadi, is currently on trial in Frankfurt, West Germany; the main question before the court is whether he personally killed Mr. Stethem. The witness on Tuesday, an Australian woman named Ruth Henderson -- who at the time of the hijacking was 16 years old -- couldn't shed much light on that question, but her testimony was valuable all the same
She was sitting with Mr. Stethem on the plane after he had been beaten and shortly before he was killed. ''His injuries included a bleeding head and back," she told the court. "His wrists had been tied very tightly and he had no feeling in his hands. His knees and ribs were very sore.

''We talked about unimportant things, about his diving, about Greece. By talking about normal things, he seemed to relax and forget the pain. It helped keep both our minds off the ordeal. . . .

''He said how it may be better that he died. He believed that someone would die on the plane, someone from the Navy men {there were six U.S. Navy divers on the plane}, and he said that because he was the only one who wasn't married, that he should be the one to die. He spoke with a clear mind. . . . He didn't believe that all of us could get out alive. He felt it was fair that he dies so that the rest of us could live.''

There's reason sometimes to be cynical about criminal trials as a place where justice loses out to lawyers' tricks and prosecutorial overzealousness. But they can still be one way for civilized people to get at the truth, and no matter what becomes of Mr. Hamadi, his trial will have done that at least to some degree. Mr. Stethem has been posthumously decorated, but Ruth Henderson's testimony speaks far more eloquently of him than any military citation could.

The truth that emerges from the Frankfurt courtroom is an instructive one: it is a picture of one young man attempting each day to dissociate himself from acts that grow more shameful with every retelling and of another who offered his country as pure an example of courage as it could want....

Quote:

Most-Wanted Terrorists'
Bush Releases List of 22 Individuals, Headed by Bin Laden and Top Aides in Al Qaeda
Washington Post
October 11, 2001

TWA FLIGHT 847

Beirut, June 14, 1985

Gunmen tied to the Lebanon-based Shiite Muslim terrorist organization Hezbollah hijacked TWA's Athens-to-Rome Flight 847 with 145 passengers and nine crew members. The pro-Iranian hijackers demanded the release of 700 Lebanese held in prisons in Israel and Lebanon. The plane ended up in Beirut, where most of the hostages were released. But U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem was executed, his body dumped on the tarmac, and 39 Americans were held at various locations in Beirut as the 17-day hostage standoff continued.

The hijackers were ultimately allowed to fly the airplane to Algiers, where they freed their remaining hostages and were able to escape arrest.

Hasan Izz-Al-Din, late thirties, 5 feet 9 inches to 5 feet 11 inches tall, 145 to 150 pounds, Lebanese

A Shiite Muslim, he stands indicted for the murder of Stethem. Another of the hijackers, Mohammed Ali Hamadi, confessed to his role while on trial in West Germany in 1988, and named Izz-al-Din as one of Stethem's killers.

Quote:

TWA HIJACKING TRIAL SET
Washington Post
May 21, 1988
Author: From News Services and Staff Reports
Estimated printed pages: 1

The trial of Mohammad Hamadi, a Lebanese Moslem accused of taking part in the 1985 hijacking of a TWA airliner and the murder of U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem, will begin July 5 in juvenile court, authorities here announced
Hamadi will be tried in juvenile court because he was under 21 when the airliner was hijacked in 1984.

PARENTS TESTIFY
Washington Post
November 9, 1988
Author: From News Services and Staff Reports
Estimated printed pages: 1

The parents of Mohammed Ali Hammadi testified at his trial, with his father saying the confessed hijacker was a minor at the time of the incident and his mother saying he was innocent.
Hammadi, a Lebanese Shiite Moslem, is charged with murder and air piracy in the June 1985 hijacking of a Trans World Airways jetliner to Beirut. U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem, 23, was killed and 39 Americans were held hostage for 17 days. Hamadi has admitted taking part in the hijacking but denied killing Stethem.

Hammadi's mother, Fatima, testified, "I know that my son is innocent. I know that he's very young and that we live under terrible conditions" in Beirut
Caption:
Najad Hammadi, wife of confessed hijacker Mohammed Ali

Hammmadi, enters Frankfurt court, where she and Hammadi's parents...

Quote:

BONN CONDEMNS THREAT BY SHIITES
FACTION DEMANDS ASSURANCES ON TERRORISTS JAILED IN GERMANY
Washington Post
July 26, 1991
Author: Marc Fisher; Washington Post Foreign Service
Estimated printed pages: 2

Germany tonight condemned a threat by Shiite Muslim militants to take "extremely negative action" against two German hostages if Bonn does not provide details by Friday on the condition of two Lebanese terrorists serving sentences in German jails
The German Foreign Ministry called the kidnappers' threat a "cynical game" and said Bonn "will not be blackmailed." But after an emergency meeting of its task force on hostages, the ministry reported that Mohammad and Abbas Hamadi "are in good health" and have been treated correctly and legally.

Mohammad Hamadi, 26, is serving a life sentence for murder in the 1985 killing of U.S. Navy sailor Robert Stethem, of Waldorf, Md., after the hijacking of a TWA jet to Beirut. Abbas Hamadi, 31, is serving 13 years for kidnapping two German businessmen in an abortive 1987 attempt to trade hostages for his brother's freedom.

A Lebanese Shiite group called Freedom Strugglers released a statement in Beirut Wednesday threatening violence against Heinrich Streubig and Thomas Kemptner, German charity workers who were kidnapped in southern Lebanon the day before Mohammad Hamadi was convicted in Germany in May 1989. It was the first time any group has taken responsibility for holding the two Germans, and the statement was accompanied by the first picture of Streubig since he was taken captive.

"We chose to exhaust all positive means to win the release of our brothers until the late attempts to murder them occurred, for which there will be a dire reckoning," the statement said. "But alas, they understand only the language of blood and violence . . . and we shall not hesitate to use them because we shall not permit any wrong done to our two strugglers."

Last week, Abbas Hamadi was stabbed with a knitting needle when he fought with another inmate at a prison in the German city of Saarbruecken. The incident sparked allegations by Shiite groups that the Hamadis are in danger of being assassinated in German jails.

German officials said there is no evidence of any plot against the brothers. Local officials said today they are in good health. Mohammad Hamadi "takes part in all sports and work activities," the Hessian state Justice Ministry said. Abbas Hamadi is living in "completely normal prison conditions," according to a statement by the Saarland state government.

The Hamadi brothers, and their older brother Abdul Hadi Hamadi, belong to the pro-Iranian Hezbollah faction, which is believed to hold many of the Western hostages in Lebanon. Reuter in Beirut quoted Lebanese security sources as saying that Abdul Hadi Hamadi is holding the two Germans and generated the latest threats against them.