While the Cape Verdean authorities approved his extradition to the US, the court of justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), declared his detention illegal and therefore he could not be extradited. African Bar Association likewise ruled that the diplomatic envoy should not be incarcerated. Nevertheless, the US under President Biden demands Cape Verde keep Saab under house arrest pending extradition.
The case of North Korean businessman Mun Chol Myong
For the first time in history, on March 20, 2021 a North Korean businessman Mun Chol Myong was extradited to the United States from Malaysia to face charges of "money laundering," "conspiracy," and supplying goods to North Korea in violation of US law. Mun was arrested in Malaysia in May 2019 shortly after a Washington DC federal judge issued a warrant for his arrest. He spent nearly two years fighting extradition, pointing out that the case was politically motivated, used as leverage in possible nuclear negotiations between the US and North Korea.
His actual "crime," in the eyes of the US rulers, was supplying needed goods to North Korea in a manner that circumvented the US sanctions and US-instigated UN sanctions. The US authorities, as of March 22, 2021, have not indicated what goods he is said to have exported to North Korea.
According to an indictment by the US District Court for the District of Columbia, Mun and his unnamed "co-conspirators" used "front" companies and bank accounts registered to false names on behalf of North Korean entities that were barred from SWIFT. The FBI claims that by concealing that their transactions were for the benefit of North Korea, Mun deceived US financial institutions into processing more than $1.5 million in transactions that they would have otherwise not processed.
John Demers, the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's National Security Division, commented, "He is the first North Korean intelligence operative [the US calls North Korean diplomats and international businesspeople "intelligence operatives"] and the second ever foreign intelligence operative [1] to have been extradited to the United States for violation of our laws." Note that a top Justice Department official is claiming foreigners who have never been in the US can be extradited here for violating "our laws." Demers then ludicrously claims Mun's export of goods to North Korea was a national security threat to US people: "We will continue to use the long reach of our laws to protect the American people from sanctions evasion and other national security threats." Assistant Director Alan Kohler Jr. of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division, added ominously, "We hope he will be the first of many."
The US has enforced sanctions, or blockade, against North Korea since 1950, at the start of the US war on Korea. The sanctions have been designed to cut the country off from international trade and cripple its economic and social development. The US claims present-day sanctions were enacted because of North Korea's nuclear-weapons program, which is a perfectly legitimate self-defense program by a country targeted by the US' own nuclear weapons.
North Korean Charge d'Affaires Kim Yu Song in Malaysia condemned the extradition as an "unpardonable crime" and the product of a US-led sanction program, "which seeks to deprive our state of its sovereignty, peaceful existence and development," and is "isolating and suffocating" the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The Case of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou
The most infamous of the three cases is that of Meng Wanzhou, who has been Chief Financial Officer and Deputy Chair of the Board of Huawei for the past 25 years. She faces charges of bank fraud for allegedly misleading HSBC, a British bank, about Huawei business dealings in Iran, causing the bank to break illegal US sanctions against Iran. On August 22, 2018, a US District Court in New York issued an arrest warrant for Meng, and Canada's RCMP then arrested her in Vancouver on December 1, 2018. She has now been under house arrest there for almost two and half years. The Chinese government has called the detention "lawless, reasonless and ruthless, and it is extremely vicious."
The Trump administration relied on two Reuters articles in 2012 and 2013 to accuse Huawei of violating these US sanctions on Iran. The US imposed sanctions shortly after Iran's 1979 revolution. The present US sanctions are claimed to be in response to Iran's nuclear-weapons program, even though the country has not been developing nuclear weapons. All UN-approved measures against Iran were ended with the JCPOA (Iran Nuclear Agreement) of 2015, and the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that Iran was in compliance with the deal.
Thus, the justification for US sanctions on Iran has no basis and violates international law, because the sanctions that Meng is alleged to have circumvented are illegal according to the UN Security Council. Moreover, both the US and its principal Middle East ally, Israel, possess stockpiles of nuclear weapons. As with North Korea, Iran would have the right to protect itself from US or Israeli nuclear attack by developing its own weapons. It is the height of hypocrisy that the only country that has used nuclear weapons actually sanctions other countries for allegedly developing them.
K.J. Noh wrote: "Most people understand that Meng is not guilty of anything other than being the daughter of Ren Zeng Fei, the founder of Huawei. Huawei, as a global technological powerhouse, represents Chinese power and Chinese technical prowess, which the United States is hell-bent on destroying. In a maneuver reminiscent of medieval or colonial warfare, the US has explicitly offered to release her if China capitulates on a trade deal--making clear that she is being held hostage. This constitutes a violation of the UN Convention on Hostages."
In court Meng's defense pointed out, first, that the US government has deliberately misstated evidence and withheld evidence from the Canadian Court. Second, the Trump administration is using her as a "bargaining chip." Third, Meng's defense denied Washington's jurisdiction to indict a Chinese national for her activities outside of US soil. "There is no connection... None of [Meng's] alleged conduct occurred either in whole or in part in the United States. Nor did they have any effect there," said her lawyers.
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