Mr. Clouseau, Call Your Office

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The New York Sun

Inspector Clouseau, telephonez votre bureau. No sooner was Zacarias Moussaoui sentenced to spend the rest of his days an a super maximum security prison in the fastness of Colorado than the French started floating the idea that it might seek his return to serve out his sentence in France. The Quai D’Orsay couldn’t even wait until the ink was dry on the judge’s formal order sentencing Moussaoui before suggesting that perhaps Moussaoui, his mother, or the French government could make the request.

The theory is that a transfer would be permissible under two treaties America signed in the 1980s.One is a bilateral agreement with France, the other a multilateral pact entered with the European Union and a smattering of other states. It may be useful for authorities to have options in dealing with prisoners, and in some instances, such as with white-collar criminals, it may be more humane to let them serve out their sentences near their families.

That said, the treaty with the EU, known as the Strasbourg Convention, is quite a piece of work when looked at through the lens of the Moussaoui case. Article 12 reads: “Each Party may grant pardon, amnesty or commutation of the sentence in accordance with its Constitution or other laws.” It’s unclear whether that applies only to the countries that set the sentence or also to the countries in which the sentence is ultimately served, but it’s certainly troubling that such ambiguity might exist.

If anyone actually gets the idea that Moussaoui should be sent to France, we’d suggest he read a hilarious August 2002 dispatch in the Wall Street Journal, which recounted a rash of escapes from French custody. One was perpetrated in 1986 by a bank robber whose wife piloted a helicopter that carried him out of the prison yard. Despite the installation of nets at most prisons to avoid more such incidents, they persist. In 2001, three convicts escaped this way in two separate incidents. And these are the colorful cases – other prisoners just walk out the door, abetted by rules allowing prisoners to wear street clothes and an apparent inability on the part of some administrators to distinguish forged release orders from the real thing. Inspector Clouseau couldn’t have made this stuff up.


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