Ireland Rejects Extradition of Terrorist Due to Supermax Conditions

By Jeralyn, Section Foreign Affairs
Posted on Fri May 22, 2015 at 10:21:59 AM EST
Tags: Charaf Damache (all tags)

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A court in Ireland has refused to extradite accused terrorist Ali Charaf Damache to the United States finding that the conditions of Supermax are overly harsh and would violate his rights under Ireland's constitution. The Court ordered him freed.

Damache was allegedly part of the 2009 plot to kill Danish cartoonist Lars Vilks, who had negatively depicted the prophet Muhammad. He is also the guy who enticed Jamie Paulin-Ramirez to marry him and travel from Colorado to Ireland. She is serving 8 years for providing material support to terrorists. She also allowed him to train her 10 year old son. [More...]

U.S. authorities had sought to convict Ali Charaf Damache, 50, on two counts of conspiring to develop a European terror cell and to aid Pakistan-based terrorists. He had been held without bail in Ireland since March 2010 but walked free after Justice Aileen Donnelly criticized Irish prosecutors and cited "substantial grounds for believing that Mr. Damache will be at real risk of being subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment if extradited to the USA." She said that the ADX super-maximum-security prison near Florence did not meet Irish constitutional standards for the treatment of imprisoned Irish citizens.

Damache pleaded guilty in Ireland to one count of sending a menacing message by telephone to an American Muslim activist following a protest involving the underpants bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. He was sentenced to 4 years with one suspended, leaving 3 years. Since he had served the three years he was released, but he was then picked up by the FBI and held for extradition. Now, due to objections to Supermax, he's free.

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Ireland Rejects Extradition of Terrorist Due to Supermax Conditions | 26 comments (26 topical)

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I am frankly rather surprised (5.00 / 3) (#57)
by Peter G on Mon May 25, 2015 at 09:02:19 PM EST

that the U.S. govt wouldn't formally pledge to the Irish authorities not to place Damache in Florence ADX. Similar arrangements have been made in the past. For example, U.S. states are able to extradite murder suspects from Canada only by promising not to invoke the death penalty. And Pennsylvania a few years ago extradited a murder suspect from France who had been tried in absentia after fleeing his trial in Philadelphia, by promising him a full retrial (because France objected on human rights grounds to trial in absentia, even of a willful fugitive). (The victim in that case was a college friend of mine.)

: I'm sure that's not (5.00 / 1) (#61)
by sj on Wed May 27, 2015 at 03:18:28 PM EST

the "claim to fame" that you would want to be attached to. I'm sorry for the loss of your friend. I can't imagine how it feels to have someone you care about be murdered by a psychopath like that.

Ding, Ding, Ding it's "factoid time." (5.00 / 5) (#58)
by NYShooter on Mon May 25, 2015 at 10:31:19 PM EST

Jim & Mordi used up 42 comments with their Mensa level mud-fight.

All other commenters = 15

Feel better, guys?

: If that isn't blog clogging --- (5.00 / 2) (#62)
by sj on Wed May 27, 2015 at 03:19:20 PM EST

-- then what is?

: they are both in timeout (3.00 / 2) (#64)
by Jeralyn on Wed May 27, 2015 at 07:49:26 PM EST

And since I am leaving town tomorrow, they will stay in timeout until at least Monday. I have no intention of moderating their obnoxious and incessant childlike insults to each other.

i await the news that this guy (none / 0) (#1)
by caseyOR on Fri May 22, 2015 at 10:37:39 AM EST

has died mysteriously. If the fallout from launching a drone attack in Ireland could somehow be contained this guy, and everyone anywhere near him, would be a goner.

Denmark? Appeasement? (none / 0) (#2)
by thomas rogan on Fri May 22, 2015 at 12:35:41 PM EST

Might Denmark want to extradite him?
Is Ireland playing the game of appeasement to avoid a suicide attack there? Fear of supermax is a pretty lame excuse.
As Churchill reportedly said, an appeaser is someone who feeds a crocodile hoping that it will eat him last.

Then go live in Supermax and tell us (5.00 / 3) (#3)
by scribe on Fri May 22, 2015 at 01:17:18 PM EST

how pleasant it is, tough guy.


Okie Dokie (none / 0) (#4)
by jimakaPPJ on Fri May 22, 2015 at 06:37:14 PM EST

Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accept the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay-and claims a halo for his dishonesty."

― Robert Heinlein


When you invoke Heinlein, (5.00 / 3) (#5)
by scribe on Fri May 22, 2015 at 06:54:39 PM EST

you run afoul of the Heinlein corollary to Godwin's law.

In other words, you lose the argument.

Chose better, Grasshopper.


"I Will Fear no Evil" (5.00 / 1) (#6)
by Mr Natural on Fri May 22, 2015 at 07:28:52 PM EST

The one title rebuttal to any attempt at using Heinlein's reputation for any reason.


Ireland is sounding better and better (5.00 / 2) (#7)
by CaptHowdy on Fri May 22, 2015 at 07:33:15 PM EST

they are voting today on national recognition of marriage equality. It's expected to pass


: I agree, regarding Ireland's Liberal bent but, (5.00 / 1) (#10)
by NYShooter on Fri May 22, 2015 at 11:09:06 PM EST

if Damache is, in fact, guilty of plotting to kill that Danish cartoonist, wasn't there a more appropriate action available than just letting the guy walk?
I don't claim to be all that knowledgeable about this case, however, the spread between a Supermax (which I agree is synonymous with a torture chamber) and complete freedom, leaves many humane and just alternatives, it just seems to me.

Not much of a rebuttal, considering (none / 0) (#8)
by scribe on Fri May 22, 2015 at 08:28:17 PM EST

the title you quote as the "one title rebuttal" panacea, he copied directly from Psalm 23 (v. 4).


He's a human being, not some sort (none / 0) (#9)
by Mordiggian 88 on Fri May 22, 2015 at 10:17:12 PM EST

of superhuman terrorist who needs to locked up in Supermax for the safety of Western Civilization.


And what would be your idea (none / 0) (#12)
by jimakaPPJ on Sat May 23, 2015 at 10:21:55 AM EST

of a proper prison designed to insure that people can't break out or in?


: If you're implying that unless he's locked (none / 0) (#13)
by Mordiggian 88 on Sat May 23, 2015 at 12:01:04 PM EST

up in a Supermax prison, he could be broken free, it just demonstrates how little you know about American's prisons.

Sorry, but you are the one claiming to know about (none / 0) (#18)
by jimakaPPJ on Sat May 23, 2015 at 08:54:38 PM EST

prisons and such.

My point was that it is not unreasonable to expect that, at some point, the radical islamists will decided that breaking a fellow radical uslamist out of prison would be a massive propaganda victory.

Therefore radical islamist prisoners should be kept in the most secure prisons possible. Prevention by displaying the obvious impossibility of the act saves lives.

That is one of the reasons for GITMO.

Sorry if that subtle point escaped you.

Ireland's actions are a slap in the face of the country that has, in many cases, looked the other way when funds and support were provided to their friends in the north in their quest for independence from England.

I am pretty sure that the last two times (none / 0) (#38)
by Peter G on Sun May 24, 2015 at 09:41:43 PM EST

violent radicals succeeded in pulling off a prison break in the U.S. were the Weather Underground's for-hire rescue of Dr. Timothy Leary in September 1970 from a low security federal prison (Leary ended up in Algeria with Black Panther fugitive Eldridge Cleaver), and the November 1979 extrication of Assata Shakur (Joanne Chesimard) from a medium security New Jersey state prison by members of the Black Liberation Army and of the May 19 Communist Organization (former Weather Underground members and other white supporters of the BLA). Shakur ended up in Cuba, where she remains 35 years later.

That's (none / 0) (#39)
by Mordiggian 88 on Sun May 24, 2015 at 10:05:09 PM EST

pretty much it, and of course the latter break-out increased the morale of the BLA so much that it became the public menace we know today.*

*That was meant to be sarcastic, for all the snark-impaired readers of this thread


: Well, I think it would be more fair to say (none / 0) (#40)
by Peter G on Sun May 24, 2015 at 10:44:03 PM EST

that what destroyed the BLA was relentless FBI pressure, especially after the BLA/M19CO pulled off the murderous Brink's robbery in Nyack, NY two years later.

You guys need a new (none / 0) (#43)
by fishcamp on Mon May 25, 2015 at 07:46:10 AM EST

clown car. Maybe something with more tin foil. (-:

: they are both in timeout now (none / 0) (#63)
by Jeralyn on Wed May 27, 2015 at 07:45:17 PM EST

and their sniping and insults and offtopic comments are being deleted

Those two prison breaks did boost the morale (none / 0) (#45)
by Peter G on Mon May 25, 2015 at 10:40:41 AM EST

and popularity of the WUO and the BLA, for a short time in each case, according to what I remember, as corroborated by what I read now:

After her escape, Shakur lived as a fugitive for several years. The FBI circulated wanted posters throughout the New York - New Jersey area; her supporters hung "Assata Shakur is Welcome Here" posters in response. In New York, three days after her escape, more than 5,000 demonstrators organized by the National Black Human Rights Coalition carried signs with the same slogan. ...
... In July 1980, FBI director William Webster said that the search for Shakur had been frustrated by residents' refusal to cooperate .... [O]ne pre-dawn April 20, 1980 raid on 92 Morningside Avenue, during which FBI agents armed with shotguns and machine guns broke down doors, and searched through the building for several hours, while preventing residents from leaving, was seen by residents as having "racist overtones." In October 1980, New Jersey and New York City Police denied published reports that they had declined to raid a Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn building where Shakur was suspected to be hiding for fear of provoking a racial incident

(footnotes omitted)

I don't disagree with any of that, Mordi (none / 0) (#47)
by Peter G on Mon May 25, 2015 at 11:56:07 AM EST

I was just setting the historical record straight about some of the crazy events from the days of my youth. I have been visiting federal prisons since 1973 or so. I have been in every security level from "camp" (minimum) to penitentiary (high), male and female, and ranging from old to new in their construction and design. In the 70s and very early '80s, you could very nearly just walk in and out (and walk around inside) the minimum and medium institutions. No more, and not for the last 25 years. The level of security inside and out is exponentially higher. SuperMax is absolutely not the only escape-proof joint. I cannot imagine a prison break today from any federal prison remotely like the escapades that I posted my comments about.

: Thank you for confirming (none / 0) (#48)
by Mordiggian 88 on Mon May 25, 2015 at 12:18:41 PM EST

what I, with a limited knowledge of the subject, suspected was the case.