Cosmoline
Member
c_yeager said:We do the exact same thing. Remember the hijacking of TWA 847? We have been claiming the authority to try the guy who killed a U.S. Navy Diver on that plane, despite the fact that it was a flight from Athens to Rome and that the Hijacking never touched American soil. We contend that the citizenship of the victim is all that we need to try the man who killed him. Complain all you want about the concept, but its a precedent that we set.
The rules regarding jurisdiction over international flights are different. These flights can cross many borders during the course of a flight, and the nations of the world agreed a long time ago not to attempt to flip through the criminal jurisdictions as the planes cross the invisible barriers. That's why the flight attendants don't snatch your cocktail away if you happen to be flying over a dry nation.
If you murder an American on a US airline during an international flight, you may well be subject to criminal jurisdiction in the US. Just as a drunk Russian who beats up crew members on a US airline flight from Magadan to Mexico may find himself dropped into US custody at the airport here in Anchorage. Though in this case Mohammed Ali Hammadi has still managed to avoid us and the fact that the murder took place on the ground in Greece is clearly causing other nations to be unwilling to hand him over.