The Pannun-Nijjar case fallout: The truth will out … or will it?
The Pannun-Nijjar case fallout: The truth will out … or will it?
Ravi Nair·October 23, 2024
When we in India cannot prosecute any security personnel without executive sanction, hoping for extradition to North America of even the small fish is living in wonderland, writes Ravi Nair.
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PERHAPS, no one working in the present Indian security establishment has seen the US television series, Have Gun Will Travel. Televised in the late 1950s and early 1960s, it features a mercenary investigator who— as anyone who has seen movies about the American Wild West will tell you— ‘is quick on the draw’.
Solving problems with painstaking investigation is not presently the favoured option in large sections of the Indian police. ‘Shoot first, ask questions later’ is the preferred option.
The number of extrajudicial killings in India is seeing an exponential rise. Coyly called ‘encounter deaths’ by an often lawless security machinery supported by a largely supine media, they are for the most part cold-blooded first-degree murders. Why should it be any different because the target is and was in North America or Shangri-La?
The ‘thok de’ culture and where it leads
“Thok diya jayengay,” (Will be knocked off) is what the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh stated and had his cops carry out the orders.
Solving problems with painstaking investigation is not presently as the favoured option in large sections of the Indian police. ‘Shoot first, ask questions later’ is the preferred option.
The US department of justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) may not have known but the US State department certainly was aware of the murderous transnational predilections of the Hindutva government in India.
In April 2024, they were reminded of it in a State department briefing. The Prime Minister and the defence minister of India showing their honed skills in diplomatic conduct had earlier said, “Ghar me ghus ke marenge” (India will not hesitate to kill terrorists in their homes.)
The US State department spokesperson’s response was tepid. A mere signaling of the wagging of the finger could have avoided the future infantile adventurism of the Indian spooks.
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Intrusive surveillance by the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) has a long back story. Just to mention two cases in the public domain: In December 2019, a court in Frankfurt, Germany convicted an Indian married couple of spying on Kashmiri and Sikh groups. It found Manmohan S., 50, and his wife, Kanwal Jit K., 51, guilty of handing information on such groups to India’s Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW).
In 2020, two Indian diplomats were expelled from Australia “for stealing sensitive defence and security secrets, monitoring Indian diaspora, and recruiting government insiders”.
The respected Australian Broadcasting Service stated, “India’s Modi government operated a ‘nest of spies’ in Australia before being disrupted by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO).”
Inept gumshoes have a long history in India. Praveen Swami, a journalist who should know, lays it bare.
The issues arising out of both the Pannun case and the Nijjar case will have multiplier fallouts. Politicians, media professionals, diplomats and spooks will have their separate takes.
For those who believe in the universality, indivisibility and interdependability of human rights, the only prism through which these issues should be viewed is criminal accountability, impunity and due process of law.
Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Merrick B. Garland, the Attorney General of the United States, Anne Milgram, the Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Christopher A. Wray, the Director of the FBI, Matthew G. Olsen, the Assistant Attorney General for National Security, and James E. Dennehy, the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s New York Field Office announced the filing of murder-for-hire and money laundering charges against Indian government employee Vikash Yadav, aka ‘Vikas’, aka ‘Amanat’, in connection with his role in directing a foiled plot to assassinate a US citizen in New York City.
The charges are contained in a second superseding indictment unsealed in the US district court for the Southern District of New York on October 17. Yadav’s alleged co-conspirator Nikhil Gupta was previously charged and extradited to the United States on the charges contained in the first superseding indictment.
In a move that is going to be of interest to the US court, Yadav was arrested on a charge of extortion and is out on bail. While there is an extradition treaty between the US and India, extradition with ongoing legal proceedings in another case is climbing the glass mountain. The man accusing Yadav of extortion was himself earlier arrested for abduction!
The Indian political parties once again gave evidence of their neophyte understanding of international law, with the exception of Jairam Ramesh, both of whose tweets were careful and measured.
The Prime Minister and the defence minister of India, showing their honed skills in diplomatic conduct, had earlier said, “India will not hesitate to kill terrorists in their homes.”
Three other senior Congress worthies decided to be Quick Gun Murugans and put out come-rally-around-the-flag tweets. The tweet from the Marxist Communist Party handle was in the same vein.
A well-intentioned eager beaver in the All Indian Trinamool Congress (TMC)’s first tweet was part of the ‘me too’ bandwagon! His second tweet was self-correcting, without admitting to being so. However, his colleague, Mahua Moitra once again proved that not only does she understand the law, but her moral compass on these issues is at an even keel.
The less said about the Hindutva brigade, the better. As for the apologists of the spook agencies in the print and audio-visual media, if you expect anything different, more fool you.
Is the case that a suspect in a murder and an attempted murder not be charged, prosecuted and tried in a court of law? Courts of law that have due process embedded in them. Not like our procedure established under law and all it entails.
The least they could have done was carefully read the press release from the US Attorney’s office from the Southern District of New York.
It clearly states, “The charges contained in the second superseding indictment are merely accusations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.”
It would be enlightening to see media releases by Indian agencies such as the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) or the Enforcement Directorate (ED) that have a formulation with words to the same effect!
And for undertrials in judicial custody, waiting for kingdom come takes on a wholly new ominous meaning about being innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
The US is no Snow White with its seven or more dwarfs in Europe and the Middle East when they facilitate the killing of non-combatants in Gaza, the Occupied Territories and Lebanon.
Targeted killings by the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia have not been met with the full force of domestic or international law. Yet, US citizens can protest vociferously outside the White House and we good Indian citizens cannot even protest silently and peacefully in New Delhi with the exception of a side street called Jantar Mantar Road where the only audience is our fellow protestors! And that too only when the Praetorian Guard deigns to give you permission on the off chance.
The US federal legal system is robust. An outline of the process is given in the link. But to really understand what could happen in high-profile cases, instead of navel-gazing, it is best to consider past cases.
The Henry Liu case and the Letelier case. The State department and the White House did not cover themselves in glory in these cases!
The Henry Liu case
Henry Liu, a gift shop owner and Chinese-language journalist critical of Taiwan, was shot to death on October 15, 1984 in the garage of his home. Liu was a liberal critic of the Nationalist Chinese regime.
In the weeks that followed, information came to light that Taiwanese criminal United Bamboo gang members had assassinated the 51-year-old Liu, a naturalised American citizen, at the behest of senior Taiwan intelligence officers. The killers were told that Liu had betrayed his native Taiwan and that his murder would be an act of patriotism.
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Two of the killers, including United Bamboo gang leader Chen Chi-li, were arrested, jailed and indicted after returning to Taiwan. They confessed to the murder. Chang’s house guest also returned to Taiwan but escaped a month later and remains at large in the Philippines. Three top Taiwan military intelligence officials implicated by Chen in the murder were stripped of their duties and arrested. The orders for the hit came from much higher.
The Letelier case
On September 21, 1976, Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier was killed, along with his American colleague Ronni Moffitt, when a bomb planted under his car exploded as they rode into work. The assassination was eventually traced back to Pinochet’s regime which was in the midst of a US-backed campaign against Chilean activists.
For those who believe in the universality, indivisibility and interdependability of human rights, the only prism through which these issues should be viewed is criminal accountability, impunity and due process of law.
Following the 1973 US-backed coup in Chile led by General Augusto Pinochet, Letelier was imprisoned and tortured. After his release, he moved to the United States where he worked for the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington.
In 1973, during the brief time that he had returned to Chile, he served as the minister of foreign relations and the minister of defence in the weeks before the coup.
The person finally responsible, Augusto Pinochet, was not brought to justice. It is clear that the Chilean secret police did not act without his authorisation. He was not prosecuted by the US justice department in the late 1970s when the other Chilean secret police officials were indicted.
The Bill Clinton administration, in part due to pressure from the Letelier and Moffitt families, reopened the investigation into his role. There was a series of documents the Clinton administration was asked to declassify, identifying Pinochet’s role in the crime, particularly in the cover-up of the crime.
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Those documents were supposed to be declassified, but they were all diverted into a justice department investigation that was going on in the spring of 2000. An FBI team was sent to Chile, spent a month there, interviewed 42 people and brought back 42 depositions.
A report written by the FBI’s international crime division recommended that Pinochet be indicted as the intellectual author of this heinous act of international terrorism.
Authorities, particularly at the federal level, are increasingly aware of the threat of transnational repression within the US, and have taken steps to prevent the worst of it: assassination attempts, rendition and assault.
Instead of his being indicted, the George W. Bush administration basically sat on the report. Worse, all the documents were withheld as evidence for this investigation.
Others involved in the planning and execution of the Letelier murder, Luis Clemente Posada Carriles, capo di tutti of many of the men who were involved in the murder, and Guillermo Novo, one of the men who was imprisoned with Carriles in Panama, were released. Novo was actually flown on a US plane and brought back to Miami!
Moral of the story. The minnows are fall guys. The big fish die in their beds.
Transnational repression under US law
The FBI states, “When foreign governments reach beyond their borders to intimidate, silence, coerce, harass, or harm members of their diaspora and exile communities in the US, that is transnational repression.”
The bureau adds, “Transnational repression may take the following forms:
Stalking, online disinformation campaigns, harassment, intimidation or threats, forcing or coercing the victim to return to their country of origin, threatening or detaining family members or friends in the country of origin, abusive legal practices (e.g., lawsuits, asset freezes or withholding legal documents such as passports), cyber hacking, assault, attempted kidnapping, attempted murder.”
As for the apologists of the spook agencies in the print and audio-visual media, if you expect any different, more fool you.
As Joshua Kurlantzick and Abigail McGowan explain, the rise of transnational repression— ranging from digital threats, family intimidation and spyware to abductions, assassinations, illegal deportations and Interpol abuse— has demonstrated that activists, diaspora groups and dissidents cannot be ensured of their safety even outside of their home countries.
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Authorities, particularly at the federal level, are increasingly aware of the threat of transnational repression within the US, and have taken steps to prevent the worst of it: assassination attempts, rendition and assault.
However, property damage, stalking and intimidation still occur, causing severe disruption to people’s lives. The departments of homeland security, justice and State, as well as the FBI, are part of a recently launched ‘whole-of-government’ approach to this issue, which is being coordinated by the National Security Council.
Significant effort has been expended to make federal law enforcement practices more responsive to the threat of transnational repression, deploy targeted sanctions to hold perpetrators accountable, and prosecute those engaging in the most aggressive campaigns.
Important action has also been taken by Congress, including the passage of legislation to help end the authoritarian practice of misusing Interpol to target critics.
Senator Jeff Merkley has introduced S.831- Transnational Repression Policy Act. The summary below was written by the Congressional Research Service, which is a nonpartisan division of the Library of Congress and was published on January 29, 2024.
Proposed Transnational Repression Policy Act
This Bill seeks to reduce transnational repression (the actions of foreign governments to intimidate, silence, or harm members of diaspora and exile communities to prevent them from exercising their human rights).
This Bill requires the President to impose property- and visa-blocking sanctions on certain foreign persons (individuals and entities) that directly engage in transnational repression.
This Bill also requires the department of State to develop a strategy to promote initiatives that (1) enhance international awareness of transnational repression; (2) address transnational repression, including by raising the costs of perpetrating repressive activities and by protecting targeted individuals and groups; and (3) conduct outreach to those targeted by foreign governments.
Additionally, the State department and the department of justice must provide training to certain individuals (e.g., relevant federal employees and law enforcement partners) on specified aspects of transnational repression.
Is the case that a suspect in a murder and an attempted murder not be charged, prosecuted and tried in a court of law?
The Bill also directs the intelligence community to prioritise, to the extent feasible, the identification of those perpetrating transnational repression against communities in the US.
There is also an identical Bill pending.
When we in India cannot prosecute any security personnel without executive sanction, hoping for extradition to North America of even the small fish is living in wonderland. As for bringing the big fish to justice, ahem!
courtesy: theleaflet.in
The writer is the executive director, South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre.
