Emerson says:"In a French court, a German doctor is found guilty in absentia of manslaughter, for the death of a 14 year old girl. Germany refuses to extradite. Twenty seven years later the girl's father drops off the gagged, tied, and beaten doctor on the steps of the French courthouse."
The girl's father, André Bamberski, had long campaigned for [Cardiologist Dieter] Krombach's extradition, claiming the physician injected his daughter with a toxic substance in an attempt to rape her. Krombach was later convicted of sexually assaulting another female patient and barred from practicing medicine. Bamberski has been released on bail while authorities investigate the kidnapping, while Krombach remains in French custody and is likely to face a new trial.Father kidnaps daughter's killer | More
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works for me. kudos!
"Soon to be a major motion picture."
Wow. Contracted the job out to Russian gangsters.
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4814765,00.html
A good doctor, but no Roman Polanski?
Wow, if someone did that to my kid, getting dragged back to court by some thugs would be the least of their worries. In fact, a life sentence in prison would probably be the safest option for them. Good for the dad in seeing justice done.
"American doctor convicted in absentia by Mexican court. America refuses to extradite. Twenty seven years later the American doctor is dropped off, gagged, tied, and beaten on the steps of the Mexican courthouse."
I applaud Bamberski; I would’ve done the same thing, probably much worse (Hostel-style), and I wouldn’t have waited 27 years. But I’m human, and prone to hotheadedness, and that’s why we have laws and due process, which while not perfect, are designed to prevent abuses like the one in my hypothetical above. Krombach sounds like a scumbag, and may even have done what the French court convicted him of, but he needs to be returned to Germany immediately.
Pretty sure it already is: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0936501/ -"Taken"
A good doctor, but no Roman Polanski?
More like Ira Einhorn, I think.
Tragedy all around ... like war, but with only a handful of people.
John Napsterista: I disagree in this case. Apart from the beating, the father did not exact his own vigilante revenge. Instead he did what a law-abiding citizen should do, which was to turn the man over to the police, where upon the process of the law can start.
The fact that due process had been prevented for 27 years because of lack of extradition was the result of some political detail between France and Germany, and had nothing to do with allowing due process to proceed.
Top parent behaviour. The offender had already been adjudged guilty in absentia, so it wasn't merely the opinion of the father, it was the opinion of the courts. I'm amazed he was so restrained for so long.
This man shall receive the Blind Justice seal of approval
Valiantly, the victim's father vascilitated no longer
and virtuously brought vigilante justice to the villain.
You are being inconsistent with your own argument. The father drop the offender at the court, so that the laws and due process you so falsely defend, can be applied to him. If the courts find that his kidnapping was unlawful and therefore he should be returned to Germany, then of course he should be returned and the laws changed to prevent injustices like this in the future.
What you are actually asking by having the offender immediately returned to Germany is to prevent the application of law and due process.
In a totally unrelated point. I wonder why you choose Mexico as your example, but if you are going to use us as an example, please do it correctly. Most mexicans (me included) will do things to the rapist of our daughter that would make hostel look like a hello kitty cartoon.
That's not unlike the Andre Dubus story "Killings," where a man kidnaps and kills a guy he believes murdered his son. Made into the movie "In the bedroom, " (c. 2002) w/Sissy Spacek (as the mother, not the father ;)). Chilling.
Ah, gives a new meaning to restorative justice.
"Criminals are a superstitious and cowardly lot, so my disguise must be able to strike terror into their hearts. I must be a creature of the night, black, terrible..."
-- B. Wayne, Detective Comics #33 (November 1939)
Actually, the closest example in recent American jurisprudence did involve Mexico, but in reverse of the above poster's hypothetical: Humberto Alvarez-Machain was accused of being involved in the kidnapping, torture and killing of a US DEA agent, but Mexico refused to extradite. Bounty hunters kidnapped Alvarez-Machain and rendered him to the US, where he was tried; he filed suit in an attempt to bar prosecution (I believe, not having the particulars at hand), but the US Supreme Court, upholding existing doctrine, found that his forcible removal from Mexico was not a bar to prosecution.
Interestingly enough, Alvarez-Machain was found not guilty at trial.
I'm not usually one for vigilante justice but it sounds like the father did everything just about everything right in this case. Even after everything he's been through he has enough self restraint to let the courts dish out final justice rather than beating the creep to death himself.
I fail to see how the above is an abuse. Not to get into too much hyperbole, but what if the story was, "American detonates nuke in New York killing a million people and flees to North Korea. North Korea refuses to extradite." A refusal of extradition doesn't imply justice or injustice. It just implies that two legal systems are, for whatever reasons, incompatible with each other. The fact that one legal system refuses to hand someone over to another legal system is not justice.
I am not saying there are not good reasons for incompatible legal systems. If a French court doesn't want to hand over a Chinese dissident to China because they feel that blogging angrily at the government isn't a crime, great. That said, in a case like this where you have one nation with a presumably fair legal system getting a wanted man back into custody because someone decided to cut some red tape, great. If the guy had killed the accused, I would agree that it was not terribly just. Just grabbing him and handing him over? Eh, at worst the guy is found guilty and suffered the relatively minor injustice of rough handling and a day in the trunk of a car. There are a lot worse fates in this world.
@Tezcatlipoca
Dude, when you're taking umbrage at a cultural slur about the way justice is served in your country, its probably best to leave out the torture porn. Sends a mixed message, and all that.
most of the above comments seem right(ish)
For myself and my own opinion I think and feel that as the doctor had already been judged guilty in absentia (i.e. he didn't show up, whether he fled the country or what) I really don't see a problem here and I the fathers restraint.
The father was obviously ready to face the consequences of his own actions (kidnapping may land him a jail sentence) while the doctor coward was not.
As for the hypothetical "if it were me": Anyone who would treat my children that way, and I am very unsure I could control my own hotheadedness. I am also unsure that I would want to. Just thinking about this makes my blood boil.
There is no justice in binding and beating the man, just revenge, no more justified than the other revenges which could follow.
The benefit of the story to the rest of us is to see who feels comfortable championing the father's revenge (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and so on).
Unbelievably awesome parenting. There is the law, and there is justice, and sometimes the two do not overlap.
It took so long because the idea didn't occur to him until he saw the dark knight last year.
Well, if you read the linked article, the convicted murderer (he was convicted, and he fled) had been hit over the head, and bound with tape. Not a beating, so much as an aggressive snatch and grab. Bounty hunters do this all the time. The dad showed a remarkable capacity for restraint and mercy, considering he had the convicted murderer at his will, and simply had him turned over to the authorities in France. He also turned himself in as part of the process of delivering his daughter's murderer.
The benefit to this story, for the rest of us, is knowing who feels comfortable championing convicted murderers and rapists who walk free on fleeing the country, so they can go on committing atrocities (as was also discussed in the linked article, the guy had been arrested in Germany on the same crime, again).
@ JB NicholsonOwens
Thanks for taking the moral high ground. You may have it.
I prefer to insure that my genes get passed on to the next generation, and the generation after that.
I'm not putting all of my emotional and financial resources into raising healthy children just so that a sociopath can abuse them or take them away from me.
Upset at our territorial displays? Darwin ain't. We evolved these sorts of behaviors for a reason.
"When affairs are past other remedies, It is justifiable to unsheath the sword."
-- Guru Gobind Singh
Contracted Russian Mafia... performed vigilante Justice... I did this like 5 times last night in Grand Theft Auto.
I hear the extradition treaties add-on will be available online from the Playstation Store next month!
@maoinhibitor
If your only moral criterion is whether someone acted in the interests of passing on their genes, why do you have a problem with rape in the first place? By your logic it's a great strategy; your victim may well choose to bring up your child and bear all the emotional and financial costs which you find such a burden.
Robulus.
There is no mixed message. I take issue at Napsteristas implication that we actually think the courts in Mexico are adequate for getting justice, and therefore, go to all that trouble to bring an offender to court. (Well, if you are rich you can get "justice" in court, but not otherwise).
That said, I actually agree with NApsteristas that law and due process must be upheld at all costs.
When people do not get justice they start getting revenge, which is prone to mistakes (killing the wrong people) and escalation (the other side comes out to get its own revenge).
Those of you lucky enough to live where law and due process are still respected, no matter how many mistakes it makes, should take a look at Mexico. Mexico is slowly turning into hell on earth because we have lost this respect for the law.
And about the torture porn thing, I thought my nickname would give you a clue.
never thought I'd have to paraphrase it like this, but: "FRAAA-AANNNCE! FUCK YEAH!"
Does this count as citizen's arrest?
think there
@ Tezcatlipoca
So there was a reason I got the image of you holding an obsidian blade.
Like the threat to kill a suicide bomber, people are uncomfortable with a disconnect here.
The father decided to take some punishment on himself, in the interest of cementing the punishment of his daughter's attacker.
Revenge? Absolutely. Smart? Probably not. But it is the choice he made, given his assessment of the circumstances. Some would go further, and kill the person they blame, perpetrator or victim.
The most that law can achieve is deterrence. Sometimes people are beyond that, at which point laws are useless.
I can certainly sympathise with the father, but I'm with John Napsterista and due process.
@ SamSam: Apart from the beating, the father did not exact his own vigilante revenge. Instead he did what a law-abiding citizen should do, which was to turn the man over to the police, where upon the process of the law can start.
Indeed. The German police, whereupon the process of legitimate extradition can start (or not). Until the German process is completed, the French one can't begin.
Ummm... The dw-world.de article linked above points out a serious issue here. The Doctor was tried and acquitted in a German court. That's why Germany refuses to extradite. (Many countries, like Mexico, refuse to extradite to the US because we kill people and they aren't down with us killing their citizens. Germany is standing up for it's own justice system by not extraditing him to France.) Also, if the murder occurred in Germany, I'm unclear on what the French court's jurisdiction would be in this.
The article also points out that the Doctor had won his case in the European Court of Human Rights that the trial in absentia in France was not adequately fair.
I have a great deal of sympathy for the father and the family, and I certainly want someone who kills and rapes people to be appropriately tried, convicted and sentenced for his actions. Unfortunately, our modern criminal justice systems are imperfect, and due process can be a bitch. This wasn't someone who had committed a crime elsewhere and then fled to Saudi Arabia or Zimbabwe and been "cleared" by a court there. This was an appearent murder in German, tried in a German court, where the accused was acquitted. It appears that that decision was flawed, but the correct course of action is to work within the German criminal justice system to correct that with new evidence, not to put money in the hands of mobsters (who may well profit from kidnapping sex slaves) and commit more crimes to move the accused to a foreign country that doesn't appear to have jurisdiction in the first place.
There is no achievement system in real life. Unfortunately.
'I prefer to ensure that my genes get passed on to the next generation, and the generation after that.'
What are you, some kind of animal?