Una proposta rivoluzionaria

Un paio di settimane fa il Financial Times ha pubblicato un'intervista ad un Consigliere Legale di Condoleeza Rice, l'avvocato John Bellinger, in cui questi accusava gli europei di limitarsi a criticare gli Stati Uniti per le violazioni da loro commesse nella cosiddetta "guerra al terrorismo", e li invitava invece a fare proposte costruttive. Per la precisione, nell' intervista Bellinger affermava che gli Europei dovrebbero smetterla di limitarsi ad esprimere "critiche dopo critiche dopo critiche". Un nostro collega, qui a Pristina, ha pensato di cogliere l'opportunità per inviare una proposta - a mio parere - assolutamente rivoluzionaria, in una lettera inviata allo stesso giornale e da loro pubblicata. Ve la riporto così com'è.

Treat terror suspects as criminals and try them in court
By Andrea Lorenzo Capussela
Published: September 26 2006

Sir,

In your interview with John Bellinger, legal adviser to the US secretary of state, Mr Bellinger challenges Europeans to offer constructive suggestions for dealing with terrorist suspects ("US needs 'advice not criticism' on terror suspects", September 21).
My suggestion is simple: treat them as criminals, not as "unlawful enemy combatants", and try them in open civilian courts, where their dignity and human rights are respected.
Before dismissing this solution as not very pragmatic, consider an example of the other approach: the Egyptian imam of a Milan mosque had been under investigation for some time when he was captured in a Milan street by CIA agents and flown to Cairo; the public prosecutors who were conducting the investigation discovered the kidnapping and have issued arrest warrants against the CIA agents and some Italian spies who helped them.
The result was disastrous: the Milan investigation into his alleged terrorist circle had to stop; several security agents have been led to commit serious crimes; and their prosecution is bound to create frictions between the two states and their law enforcement bodies, which should instead be co-operating closely.
Treating terrorists as criminals should be the obvious solution in our democracies and may be very effective: the perpetrators of the Madrid massacre have all been found guilty and sent to jail by civilian courts, applying the common rules of evidence.
Those who describe this approach as "fighting with a hand tied behind one's back" forget that this is precisely what the rule of law means and what distinguishes liberal states from police states; which, in any event, have not been famously effective against terrorists.
Alas, the most common objection to this solution is also the less amenable to rational debate: the war on terror, it is said, requires unfettered powers.
Sadly, so much emotional and political capital has been piled above those three words that many no longer see that "war on terror" is only a metaphor, and rather imprecise at that.

Andrea Lorenzo Capussela,
Dragodan, Prishtina

Copyright: The Financial Times Limited 2006