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Watkins: Change extradition policy
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Claudia Hoerig
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Karl Hoerig
Watkins: Change extradition policy
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The number of times Brazil has harbored fugitives accused of committing serious crimes in other countries continues to climb, and each case makes it evident that the practice should stop, Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins said.
Watkins says he has 10 expandable files worth of information on such cases, one of which started in Trumbull County — the March 2007 murder of Karl Hoerig at his Newton Falls home. His wife, Claudia, a Brazilian native, is charged in the killing but fled to Brazil.
Brazil has refused to extradite her to the United States to stand trial, just as Brazil has refused to extradite others charged with crimes reportedly committed outside of Brazil.
Watkins believes Brazilians could be persuaded to change their laws and extradition policies if the Claudia Hoerig case and others are better known. To that end, Watkins will be interviewed today by “The Daily,” a national news-gathering organization that distributes its content on the iPad.
Watkins said Brazil’s extradition policy stands in the way of Brazil becoming the type of world leader it wants to be.
“It’s my opinion that Brazil should repeal the law that discriminates in favor of native Brazilians and treats them with complete safe harbor when they commit crimes around the world, including the United States,” Watkins said.
One example is Brazilian native David Britto, a former Boynton Beach, Fla., police officer charged with drug trafficking in Florida and facing a possible life prison sentence who fled to Brazil in August.
Britto, 28, was living in his mother’s Coral Springs home awaiting trial when he cut off his electronic monitoring bracelet and flew to the South American country.
His mother, who bought him the one-way airline ticket, tried to follow him but was arrested Sept. 2 at JFK International Airport and is in federal custody.
In another case, the Brazilian supreme court ruled in June that it would not extradite Cesare Battisti, a native Italian and former leftist rebel convicted of four murders carried out in Italy in the late 1970s. The court’s order upheld a December decision by then Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva just before leaving office, an act that angered Italy.
Battisti’s lawyer, Luis Roberto Barroso, argued before the Brazilian court that Brazil was “morally obligated” to refuse Italy’s request for extradition. Brazil “granted amnesty to those charged with political crimes during the military regime that ruled [in Brazil] from 1964 to 1985,” Battisti said.
“And if we granted amnesty then, it is morally legitimate that the president of the republic decide not to punish someone for something we wouldn’t have punished him for,” Barroso said, according to the Associated Press.
Watkins says he believes the tumultuous political history of Brazil in recent decades, resulting in a rewriting of the Brazilian Constitution in 1988, has influenced Brazil’s stance on extradition.