More on crime and (lenient) punishment

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If you are interested in the issues raised by the case of Wolfgang Daschner (discussed in two earlier posts), you might wish to acquaint yourself with the similar case of Alexander Holmes.

I mentioned this case in comments to the earlier of those two posts. I also mentioned that you really ought to read it. Happily, you can now do so even if you are reading afoe on your PDA and have foolishly left your leather-bound volumes of the Federal Cases at home. You’ll find the report of United States v. Holmes on the website of the State University of New York at Buffalo. The University deserves a hat-tip for making this report easily available to anybody with an internet connection. It is one of the most fascinating court reports ever written, and unlike most is also a cracking read. (And, unlike more modern reports, it records the arguments of counsel as well as the opinion of the court.)

At first blush, Holmes’s story doesn’t seem similar to Daschner’s at all. The crime for which Holmes was tried was far graver than Daschner’s. And, crucially, Holmes was not an agent of the state. Holmes’s story tells us nothing about whether torture may be justified and, if so, under what circumstances. But Holmes illustrates, even more dramatically than does Daschner, the problem faced by the state when a good man is driven to a terrible deed by overwhelming circumstances entirely beyond his control.
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A major media event

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Slate announces that its parent, Microsoft, has sold the pioneering online magazine (where afoe‘s own Scott MacMillan’s byline appears from time to time) to the Washington Post. I haven’t seen Slate‘s figures, but it’s just possible that Microsoft might not need to show its financial statements pro forma for the divestiture.

At this juncture it would be as well to remind our readers that the rumours of afoe‘s impending acquisition by Rupert Murdoch are just that, rumours. All the same, we take comfort from Mr Murdoch’s long-standing policy of respecting his journals’ editorial independence and treating his employees decently. Coming soon: ‘The French-Democratic-Islamofascist Conspiracy to Deprive New Europe of Christmas — An afoe Special Report‘.

Re-run Run-up.

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Speaking to reporters during the Russian-German governmental consultations, Russian President Putin confirmed that he will respect the result of the – less manipulated – re-run of the Ukrainian Presidential election next Sunday.

“I know Mr Yushchenko as I do the current Prime Minister Mr Yanukovich … He has also been a member of President (Leonid) Kuchma’s team, like Yanukovich, and so I don’t see any problem.”

Mr Putin also dismissed interpretations of the event that suggest he has been dealt a personal defeat. Not that anybody expected anything else, but I suppose hearing this will prevent some more people in Ukraine from playing electoral games this time.

Meanwhile, on Monday night Ukrainians could witness a tv debate with a kafkaesquely transformed Yanukovich. His increasing political isolation apparently became most evident when he, who had earlier accused his opponent, Mr Yushenko, of being an American puppet, suggested that the “Orange Revolution” was staged by the incumbent President Kuchma, with the knowledge of the opposition’s leader, in order to prevent him from opposing the Oligarchic system.

Mr Yanukovich, who had very recently supported secessionist sentiments in Eastern Ukraine, now sent his campaign staff to explain that it would be still unceratain if Yanukovich supporters would tolerate a Yushenko victory on the 26th, while he attempted to present himself as savior of national unity with an offer to create a government of “national unity”, and even asked for to be forgiven for insulting the Orange Protesters.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine (German) and the Kyiv Post have more, also on the poisoning of Mr Yushenko.

Hungary Ratifies EU Constitution.

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It is probably a mere coincident that the last troops of Hungary’s Iraq contingent completed their withdrawal from the current coalition of the willing as the Hungarian Parliament voted 322 to 12 in favor of the European Constitution yesterday, more than the required two-thirds majority. President Ferenc Madl’s signature on the law will formally make Hungary the second country to ratify the document (via AP, AFP).

Torture does not pay

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As you consider the ongoing saga of US treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and elsewhere, spare a thought for Wolfgang Daschner. As I wrote in an earlier post, Daschner, Frankfurt’s former deputy police commissioner, faced trial for threatening one Magnus G?fgen with torture. G?fgen had kidnapped young Jakob von Metzler, and the police were trying desperately to find the boy. What they didn’t know at the time was that G?fgen had murdered him very shortly after the abduction and disposed of his body in a lake.

Daschner struck me as a model of the “well-meaning torturer”. He couldn’t have known that Metzler was already dead, and was frantic to find him. But when G?fgen kept shtum, Daschner decided to use torture as an ultima ratio. Well, he didn’t actually use it; but he threatened it, and that was enough both to make G?fgen talk and to make Daschner face criminal charges. In my earlier post, I had said that, if the court found Daschner guilty,

he should be punished. I would hope that the court, in meting out a punishment, would take into account the inhumanly impossible position Daschner found himself in (and the Criminal Code does allow for significantly milder penalties for criminal coercion than a three-year prison term)…. But I cannot accept that his deed be dismissed … because he was acting in good faith and sought to achieve a desirable result.

As the S?ddeutsche reports (in German, alas), the State Court in Frankfurt has now found Daschner guilty. His punishment, though, is mild indeed.
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“The second highest level ever recorded in humans”

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More information about the poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko is coming out as the doctors analyse the samples more, and what’s being found out is frankly scary:

Tests have revealed that the chemical used to poison Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko was pure TCDD, the most harmful known dioxin.
TCDD is a key ingredient in Agent Orange – a herbicide used by US troops in the Vietnam war and blamed for serious health problems.
[…]
Blood samples taken in Vienna, where Mr Yushchenko was treated, were sent to the Dutch capital, Amsterdam, for further analysis.

“It is a single chemical, not a mix,” Prof Abraham Brouwer of the Free University in Amsterdam told the Associated Press.

“This tells us… there is no way it occurred naturally because it is so pure.”

He said there were some small signs which could reveal where it was made.

Initial tests had shown the level of poison in Mr Yushchenko’s blood was more than 6,000 times higher than normal – the second highest level ever recorded in humans.

Go directly to jail, do not pass go…

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After much public outcry over his pardoning of Miron Cozma, Iliescu today revoked his decision. Cozma was arrested again in Timisoara today. Apparently, he tried to flee the country after hearing that his pardon had been revoked. There’s a clip that’s been playing over and over again on the news — it shows Cosma grabbed, surrounded by police and (protesting vigorously) herded into the paddy wagon.

He had huge, rock-star hair, great curly masses of it. Maybe he just let it grow in prison? I didn’t know that was allowed.

Anyway. One bad guy down, good.

The voice of the people has been heard and acted upon, also good.

The public mess and the impression this must leave in the international community, not good at all.

This whole affair has turned into a farce but nobody is laughing. Romanians wonder what has gotten into Iliescu. All my acquaintances today were outraged or depressed by the news of the pardon, confused and bewildered by the revocation. Wild rumors are flying but since they change every hour, it’s no use documenting them. Can you revoke a pardon, anyhow? Or are they claiming that the pardon wasn’t issued properly? That’s still not clear — at first it seemed the latter (Nastase said he didn’t counter-sign it?) but now it seems the former. Maybe we will know more in a day or two.

Then again, maybe not.

Halfway There

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This spring, the German newspaper whose web site isn?t quite as bad as another?s began publishing a series of 50 Great Novels from the Twentieth Century. It?s an admirable project in many ways — not least a cover price of EUR 4.90 per hardback. Thirty-seven books have been published so far, and I?ve now read about half of the whole list. Which is as good a point as any for taking stock.

I haven?t quite read 25 of the 50, but let?s face it, with Deutschstunde (German Hour, Siegfried Lenz, no. 28) clocking in at nearly 800 pages, and hefty volumes such as Jorge Semprun?s What a Beautiful Sunday! (Was f?r einen sch?nen Sonntag, no. 17) and Juan C. Onetti?s The Short Life (Das kurze Leben, no. 11), it?s going to be quite a while before I manage all of them.
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