El Tiempo, April 5, 2010

A Dark Page

By Eduardo Pizarro Leongómez

On August 27, 2007 Yair Klein was captured in the Domodedovo airport in Moscow by the Russian authorities in cooperation with the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) at the request of the Colombian authorities. Klein was convicted by a criminal judge, together with two other mercenaries of his same nationality (Melnik Ferry and Tzedaka Abraham), and sentenced with 10 years and 8 months for training terrorist groups and for conspiracy to commit a crime. The sentence was ratified in a second instance by the Superior Court of Manizales in the year 2001. In other words, the sentence was produced in the context of full guarantees for the procedural rights of the accused.

The efforts of the national government, with support from the Russian authorities, to oblige Klein to serve his prison sentence in Colombia have been frustrated, however. According to the European Court of Human Rights, given the precariousness of our prison system, there is a high risk of torture for the Israeli mercenary. Based on these arguments, a majority of the court members (5 against 2) conveyed the message this week to Russia that Klein's extradition constitutes a human rights violation. Could the Strasbourg Court be confusing Cómbita prison with the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base? Or with the multiple clandestine prisons that have been used in European territory to hide detainees accused of belonging to Al Qaeda? What is certain is that this ruling is scandalous for various reasons.

First, it is a reflection of the "double standards" dominating a world with asymmetric power. While the demand is made for Colombia to reduce impunity and guarantee the rights of victims to truth, justice, and reparation, the Court in Strasbourg prefers to protect this criminal (from imaginary risks of torture) in detriment to the rights of the victims. (continue)