Where Should I Flee to Avoid Extradition?

[struggle4progress]

Hong Kong? Iceland? Ecuador? Paris is lovely this time of year.
By Jillian Keenan
Posted Monday, June 10, 2013, at 4:49 PM

... Hong Kong has a history of cooperating with the United States on legal matters and is seen as likely to extradite Snowden if the U.S. government requests it. Are there safe places in the world to flee if you want to avoid extradition?

Yes. Consider France. Although France does have an extradition treaty with the United States, it also has a history of reluctance to send people into the U.S. criminal justice system. France has refused to extradite filmmaker Roman Polanski, a French citizen, back to the United States, where he faces charges for the 1977 rape of a 13-year-old girl. More recently, a French court decided not to extradite Michael and Linda Mastro, who were indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of bankruptcy fraud and money laundering, unless American authorities would promise not to imprison them ...

Although it may be tempting to flee to a place that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the United States, many of those countries would be pretty unappealing to a whistle-blower with a taste for human rights: Somalia, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, and Syria, for example. At the other end of the spectrum, the small European nation of Andorra has great skiing, one of the highest life expectancies in the world, and no extradition treaty. But Andorra, Ukraine, and other seemingly livable places without extradition agreements aren’t a sure bet, either. Even without a formal treaty in place, a country can still choose to repatriate a fugitive trying to hide out within its borders ...

But if Snowden wants to try his luck in Iceland, France, or anywhere else, he’d have to get there first. Interpol will sometimes issue a “red notice” (the closest thing to an international arrest warrant) but keep it sealed so that the wanted person doesn’t know it’s out there ...

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2013/06/edward_snowden_extradition_is_hong_kong_safer_than_iceland_ecuador_or_france.html

[DCBob]

1. cuba

[Squinch]

2. Definitely not Hong Kong. Don't know what he was thinking with that.

[The Link]

3. Obama could just drone him.

He's done that before.

[struggle4progress]

5. Not in any remotely analogous case

[Cirque du So-What]

4. France dragged their feet for years

before finally allowing Ira Einhorn to be extradited for the murder of Holly Maddux:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira_Einhorn

As noted, there was no possibility that he would have faced the death penalty, yet his extradition was not granted for four years.