It’s time to play hardball with Brazil on extradition

After almost a year of stonewalling Congressman Tim Ryan of Niles, D-17th, on the issue of Claudia Hoerig’s return to Trumbull County to stand trial for murder, Brazilian officials are now claiming that their hands are tied.

The constitution of Brazil prohibits the extradition of a Brazilian citizen to stand trial outside the country, Ryan has been told.

The only problem is that Claudia Hoerig, who has been indicted on a charge of aggravated murder with a gun specification in the death of her husband, Karl, of Newton Falls, is also an American citizen.

But the Brazilians contend that Claudia is first a Brazilian citizen and, therefore, if she is to be tried, it would be in the South America country, not the United States.

Karl Hoerig was found dead on March 12, 2007, in the home he shared with his wife. A month later, Congressman Ryan urged the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. State Department to pressure Brazil to send Claudia back when it was determined that she had slipped out of the U.S. after her husband’s murder.

A federal warrant has been issued charging her with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.

Today, however, the congressman and Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins are no closer to getting the Brazilians to relent than they were last April.

That’s unfortunate and unacceptable.

It’s time for the U.S., through Congress and the Bush administration, to play hardball.

While we were in full support last December of Ryan’s plan to sponsor legislation to impose economic and travel sanctions against Brazil if it continued to fight Claudia Hoerig’s extradition, we now realize that the constitutional argument may hold water with the administration.

The congressman also wanted the U.S. to renegotiate its treaty with Brazil and to limit or eliminate the $140 million in foreign aid sent to Brazil.

Longshots

Those now seem like longshots.

Does it mean that all is lost? Not necessarily.

Given that Karl Hoerig was a major in the Air Force Reserves — he flew C-130s out of the Youngstown Air Reserve Station — and also was a pilot with Southwest Airlines, this is the kind of story the national press would pursue if it became a topic of discussion in the presidential election.

The Democratic and Republican candidates for president should be asked whether Brazil, which is supposed to be a friend of the United States’, is doing the right thing by protecting an accused killer of an American military man and a respected and well-liked member of his community.

The candidates should also be asked what they would do if they were in the White House and were presented with the details of the murder case.

Indeed, if the House passed a resolution urging President Bush to intercede on behalf of Karl Hoerig’s family, the Trumbull County prosecutor’s office, and law-abiding Americans, it would draw public attention to the case.

That’s what is now needed to get the Brazilian government to do the right thing.