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German government accuses the USA of violating human rights

Germany Criticizes U.S. Justice

By JEROME SOCOLOVSKY
.c The Associated Press

  
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - Germany criticized the fairness of the U.S. 
justice system and its application of capital punishment on Monday as it 
opened a World Court suit against the United States over the execution of two 
German citizens in Arizona. 

Gerhard Westdickenberg, chief representative of the German government in the 
World Court case, said the lawsuit over the case of Walter and Karl LaGrand 
was meant to ensure that jailed foreign nationals receive consular 
representation, and that it was not a challenge to U.S. sovereignty. 

``This form of punishment cannot be justified, neither ethically nor 
legally,'' Westdickenberg told the 15 international judges at the supreme 
U.N. judicial body. 

Karl LaGrand and his brother Walter were sentenced to death for fatally 
stabbing a 63-year-old bank manager during a botched robbery near Tucson, 
Arizona, in 1982. 

Germany filed its suit the day before Walter LaGrand, 37, was scheduled to 
die in Arizona's gas chamber on March 3, 1999. Karl LaGrand, 35, had received 
a lethal injection on Feb. 24. 

The lawsuit comes at a time of increasing protests worldwide against U.S. 
executions of foreign nationals. Last Friday, protests from Sweden, France, 
Mexico and the European Union failed to prevent the execution in Texas of 
Miguel Flores, a Mexican-born man who fatally stabbed a college student 11 
years ago. 

``There are compelling reasons to believe that the LaGrands' sentences would 
have been reduced had the evidence about their traumatic childhood, 
hospitalizations and racial isolation in Germany been presented,'' Germany 
said in a case summary. 

In going ahead with Walter LaGrand's execution, Westdickenberg said, Arizona 
authorities ignored an emergency ruling by the Hague court, which ordered a 
stay until justices could consider the merits of the case. 

Although born in Augsburg, Germany, the LaGrands were taken as children to 
America after their German mother married a U.S. serviceman. Arizona state 
officials claim they were initially unaware of the LaGrands' German 
nationality when they were arrested on Jan. 7, 1982. 

But Westdickenberg maintained that Arizona officials were aware of it as 
early as April 1982. Nevertheless, he said, the German consulate was notified 
of their detention only in 1992, after the convicts learned of their rights 
from fellow prisoners. 

Germany said proper consular aid could have saved the convicts' lives. 

Arizona has acknowledged it violated international law in the detentions and 
sent a formal apology to the German government. 

But Germany, which abolished capital punishment after World War II, wants the 
court headed by Judge Gilbert Guillaume of France to declare that the United 
States ``violated its international legal obligations.'' 

Westdickenberg said his delegation of international lawyers will show that 
the United States breached its commitments under the Vienna Convention on 
Consular Relations by failing to notify the LaGrands of their right to 
contact consular officials upon detention. 

The German delegation also is demanding that America pay reparations and 
``provide Germany a guarantee of the non-repetition of the illegal acts,'' 
according to the application. 

Although its judgments are binding under international law, the World Court - 
formally known as the International Court of Justice - has no independent 
means to enforce compliance. 

The U.S. chief representative to the court, James H. Thessin, will begin 
presenting the American case on Tuesday. 

AP-NY-11-13-00 1018EST

Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news 
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The times they are a-changin'...
Kurt-Werner Pörtner