Mohammed gets Miranda, praise Allah

George at Orwellian.Org George at Orwellian.Org
Sat Feb 17 18:46:52 PST 2001


http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/17/nyregion/17TERR.html?pagewanted=all
#    
#    February 17, 2001
#    
#    Judge Extends Legal Rights Beyond U.S.
#    
#    By BENJAMIN WEISER
#    
#    A federal judge in Manhattan has ruled that foreign suspects 
#    who are interrogated abroad by American law enforcement officials 
#    are entitled to the same Fifth Amendment right against 
#    self-incrimination as suspects who are questioned in the United 
#    States.
#    
#    The decision, which was unsealed yesterday in Federal District 
#    Court in Manhattan, is the first to apply the Constitutional 
#    standard to such interrogations, wrote the judge, Leonard B. 
#    Sand. It could have a broad impact on the government's 
#    investigations abroad, particularly in terrorism cases.
#    
#    Judge Sand also ruled that the familiar Miranda warnings, which 
#    are traditionally read to all suspects in the United States, 
#    must also be administered to foreign suspects who are interrogated 
#    by American agents abroad.
#    
[snip]
#    
#    "What he has done," said H. Richard Uviller, a law professor 
#    at Columbia University, "is universalized this provision of the 
#    Bill of Rights."
#    
#    Professor Uviller said the decision was "significant insofar 
#    as it controls the trial of accused foreign terrorists in American 
#    courts."
#    
#    "They are treated almost exactly as if the interrogation had 
#    taken place at One Police Plaza," the professor said.
#    
#    "It's a sound opinion," he added, "on a novel subject justified 
#    by all of the best authority, as well as good sense."
#    
#    The government will not appeal the ruling, said Herbert Hadad, 
#    a spokesman for the United States attorney's office in Manhattan, 
#    who refused further comment.
#    
[snip]
#    
#    The judge found the question important because of the "increasing 
#    regularity" with which American law enforcement officials "are 
#    dispatched and stationed beyond our national borders."





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