Russian MP fears US Secret Service cuffed his son for Snowden swap

"I'm wondering how agents of the US government can enter a foreign country and remove someone against their will"

Easy. What you do is go in there without telling them, grab the person and stuff him on your private plane back to the US, possibly drugged in a box. When the Country involves complains or mentions amusingly Naive concepts such as international law, you give them the finger. or if your on good terms with them, you ignore them. Its a winning strategy developed by the likes of the CIA, Mossad and the former KGB since the 50's.

@Jonny Canuck

> I'm wondering how agents of the US government can enter a foreign country and remove someone against their will

Does the expression "Extraordinary Rendition" not ring any bells?

The Americans have a long history of kidnapping people to bring them to "justice" and, of course, have a nice little understanding in their Courts that it doesn't matter *how* the defendant (who is, of course, supposedly presumed innocent, whether you have any sympathy for him or not) got there...

don't rendition in Italy

They don't like this type of thing in Italy. see:

http://jurist.org/paperchase/2014/03/italy-high-court-upholds-convictions-of-cia-agents-in-extraordinary-rendition.php

"12 March 2014 Italy's highest court ... on Tuesday upheld guilty verdicts against three US defendants in the 2003 extraordinary rendition kidnapping of an Egyptian terror suspect. The three Americans are CIA agents who participated in the kidnapping of terror suspect Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr on a Milan street."

>The Maldives government would have had to consent to this action, would they not? I wonder what incentives the US offered to secure their cooperation.

"Nice island you've got here. Shame if anything happened to it" while someone whistles the the Grenadan national anthem softly in the background.?

Guilty until proven....

"(not that I have any sympathy for the defendant in this case)"

Really? I've not seen any evidence of his guilt, only the accusations in the article. Until I or a jury does I reserve judgement. Meanwhile I'd like to know if his arrest was legal under international law. If it was and if there is enough legally obtained evidence for a judge to have issued a warrant then due process has taken place and his dad can shove his moaning and posturing where the sun don't shine.

If only.....

His father had to buy his seat.... What's really worrying is that he actually was elected....

Re: Prison awaits

If his alleged victims are commercial businesses as the article implies then there is no reason why he should not be promptly transferred to the US mainland where he can get access to legal and diplomatic representation. Any undue delay in so doing leaves the US Gov. open to criticism.

Re: Prison awaits

No problem with him being charged and arrested, but there is a proper, legal way of doing that and then there is the "sinking below their level" way of doing it that the USA seems to go in for these days.

Re: Cut and Dried

We may not hold innocent people hostage, but we'll sure as fuck hold accused people hostage. Guilt and innocence are matters for the courts, not the jailers. After he's arraigned all the rules for a 'speedy' trial change. If the case involves a foreign national, thus the involvement of the State Department, that accused flight risk can be kept in jail for a very, very long time while diplomatic negotiations are underway. It's legal trickery that allows for punishment before the accused has been judged, and it sucks, but that's just the way things are.

Re: Cut and Dried

Legitimate investigation? Probably.

But, unless this is lazy and sensationalistic reporting, then the US Government acted illegally in aprehending him. They should have gone the local LEAs to have him arrested and extradited, or they should have gotten approval for the Secret Service to be on foreign soil (which usually means that a maldevan police officer would have to actually make the arrest).

The articles I'm reading are all fuzzy on this matter, saying just that the Secret Service arrested him on foreign soil and bundled him into an aircraft. If that wasn't coordinated through the local LEA in the Maldives, then it would be an illegal act and the suspect should be freed at once and returned to the Maldives, where the Secret Service can then go through the process again, through proper channels this time, supplying evidence.

If they did go through channels, that is another matter, but the reporting neglects to mention whether he was legally arrested or not.

Re: Cut and Dried

"The U.S. does not hold innocent people hostage"

You must have missed Guantanamo Bay on the news. Remind me what percentage of those held were ever convicted of any crime again?

Or the case of Khalid El Masri, or Marwan Jabour or the dozens that we know of that were subjected to extraordinary rendition?

At least 39 detainees who were once held by the CIA in secret detention remain "disappeared," according to Off the Record, a report jointly published June 7, 2007 by six leading human rights groups, including Amnesty International, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, and Human Rights Watch. Spokesmen say that their report:

"... reveals the extent to which the United States has illegally used “proxy detention” to empty its secret sites and demonstrates that far from targeting the “worst of the worst,” the system sweeps up low-level detainees and even involves the detention of the wives and children of the “disappeared,” in violation of their human rights. 'Off the Record' also documents allegations concerning the treatment of detainees while in secret detention, including torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

Re: All I ask is his dad is not called a defendant....

The father is a politician so the fact his son doesn't have at least one oversized headphone jack mounted in his skull is more than enough evidence he's not a cyber hacker.

Re: All I ask is his dad is not called a defendant....

If his online "handle" really is Track 2 then it suggests he's interested in payment cards, as that's the name of the data field. And for all the conspiracy theorists - shut the fuck up, as he was initially indicted back in 2011, well before Snowden did a bunk.