Extradition treaty with the United States

A friend of mine – a retired FBI special agent now and living in the DC area, told me –  if one had to choose two countries where one wouldn’t want to burn bridges, it would be your country of birth and the United States.

Jeane Catherine Napoles just did exactly that – she left the Philippines last week and ran from the United States. Jeane happens to be the daughter of alleged Priority Development Assistance Fund/pork barrel scam queen Janet Lim Napoles who is detained at Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City for plunder as well as graft and malversation charges.

Last week, a US federal grand jury indicted Janet and her children Jeane, Jo Christine and James Christopher as well as her brother Reynald Luy Lim and wife Ana Marie for domestic and international money laundering, “conspiring to funnel in and out of the United States approximately $20 million in Philippine public funds through a multi-year bribery and fraud scheme,” a statement from the US Attorney’s office in Los Angeles, California said. 

The $20 million was used to buy real estate properties and luxury vehicles, and maintain a lavish lifestyle for Napoles’ family, in particular her daughter Jeane whose social media posts showing her riding in style in limousines and Porsches, wearing expensive bags, shoes, jewelry and clothing, plus an ultra-lavish birthday party held at Beverly Hills hotel started a firestorm that prompted authorities to investigate.

The indictment has raised speculations that Napoles and family could be extradited if the United States makes an official request. Although Janet has to stand trial in the Philippines first before she can be extradited to the US, the case could be different for her children and relatives if they have no pending cases before Philippine courts.  

Simply put, extradition is the process of handing over a person accused or convicted of a crime to a foreign state/country where the crime was committed. The Philippines and the US have an extradition treaty signed in November 1994 (ratified in November 1996), with Presidential Decree No. 1069 issued in January 1977 being the relevant law.   

PD 1069 states that “the suppression of crime is the concern not only of the estate where it is committed but also of any other state to which the criminal may have escaped, because it saps the foundation of social life and is an outrage upon humanity at large, and it is in the interest of civilized communities that crimes should not go unpunished.”

Over the years, the Philippines and the US have made use of their extradition treaty to prevent individuals accused or convicted of crimes from evading the law. In August 2009, the Philippines extradited high-ranking Abu Sayyaf terrorist group member Madhatta Haipe to the US over charges of kidnapping for ransom of several individuals that included several Americans. Haipe was responsible for kidnapping 16 people, six of them children, in a remote area in Mindanao in 1995. It took almost 15 years, but the cooperation between US and Philippine authorities (the FBI, NBI, PNP and the Philippines’ DOJ) proved to be successful with justice finally served when Haipe was given a 23-year prison term in December 2010. 

In 1998, the FBI requested for the extradition of the late Mark Jimenez a.k.a. Mark Crespo to the United States. Jimenez managed to delay the proceedings by using political connections but was eventually extradited to the United States in 2002. However, the Philippines’ request for the extradition of Rod Strunk – suspected in the murder of Nida Blanca – failed after a US court ruled that there was no probable cause after another suspect recanted an earlier testimony implicating Strunk.

Although extradition can be a sensitive subject especially on the issue of sovereignty, there are provisions that govern the extradition process, such as the definition of what constitutes extraditable offenses, and extraterritorial offenses. What’s important to many however is that extradition can be an effective tool in fostering international cooperation in repressing the activities of criminals and punishing the same. 

A case in point is Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, head of the Sinaloa drug cartel. Guzman, whose daring prison breaks have added to his notoriety, was accused of bringing in billions of dollars worth of drugs to the US and laundering the profits back to Mexico. In January 2017, the Mexican government extradited him to the US (conditioned on no death penalty) just before the inauguration of Donald Trump as president. And just last month, El Chapo’s lieutenant Damaso Lopez (nicknamed “El Licenciado” or “the graduate”) was extradited from Ciudad Juarez to the US.

However, US requests for extradition are not always granted, like in the case of film director Roman Polanski who was charged with raping a minor. A Swiss court denied the request, saying the US did not provide legal documents pertaining to the Polanski case. In December 2016, a Polish court also ruled against the US extradition request, saying it has been almost 40 years since the charges were filed and that the accuser has publicly forgiven Polanski, who paid the financial remuneration she demanded.

Fleeing criminals should remember the words of a Beatles’ song “Nowhere to run” especially since the United States has extradition treaties with over 100 countries. In the words of the FBI special agent – “We may not get ‘em today or tomorrow but we’re gonna get ‘em.” The fact is, if the United States wants to get you, they can. The US went to war, spending trillions of dollars just to find one man – Osama bin Laden.

*      *      *

Email: [email protected].