U.S.-MIDDLE EAST: Hamas Leader Enters Deportation Limbo

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

NEW YORK, May 14 1996 (IPS) - Hamas leader Musa Abu Marzook is unlikely to be in Israel before the next millennium, despite last week’s ruling that he should be deported from the United States.

This is the view of Stanley Cohen, attorney for the Islamist leader. The assessment comes days after U.S. District Court Judge Kevin Duffy ruled that Marzook should be deported.

Cohen, however, predicts that, “The next stage will take from five to eight years.”

The U.S. Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS) is meanwhile keeping Marzook in a New York cell following the ruling last week.

The U.S. government has wanted Marzook out of the country, claiming he is a threat to the fragile Israeli-Palestinian peace process. And Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres has asked for Marzook to stand trial in Israel for his alleged linkage to Hamas terrorist attacks against Israelis.

In handing down his sentence, Duffy declared that the hearings over whether to deport Marzook had gone on long enough. “The delay ends now,” he asserted.

“Duffy was being gratuitous,” counters Cohen, who claims that Marzook’s hearing, 10 months after immigration officials seized him as he returned to New York from Jordan, was already “faster than fast”.

Within days of Duffy’s ruling, the New York Circuit Court responded that Marzook was entitled to file a writ of habeas corpus — the procedure that allows defendants who claim they have been wronged at the district level to obtain an appeal from a higher court.

Cohen says that just filing a writ would extend the Hamas leader’s stay in the United States by at least another few months. And if the New York Circuit Court allows Marzook a habeas appeal, there would be another trial, stretching out for a few years. Even if that fails, Cohen says, he is prepared to take Marzook’s case as high as the Supreme Court.

Similar extradition cases — such as that of accused Irish Republican Army (IRA) member Joseph Doherty, who was extradited to Britain after an eight-year process — indicate that Marzook may have many levels of appeals before Israel can claim him.

But, by the same token, even if Marzook wins an appeal, the U.S. government can simply re-apply to have him extradited, notes Mary Ramadan, legal director of the American-Arab Anti- Discrimination Committee (ADC) in Washington.

“This could go on indefinitely,” Ramadan says.

The main problem, Ramadan says, is that in extradition cases, no judge has the power to make a decision that is binding on the executive branch. As a result, if the United States really wants Marzook in Israel — as the administration has clearly indicated — they could ignore any favourable ruling down the line and simply file for his extradition anew.

Marzook himself remains in detention with no chance of bail for at least another few months while his habeas writ is filed. Some Arab leaders say it is a peculiar fate for the Hamas leader, since he is regarded as a moderate in the Islamist group.

“He is well-known to be a moderate leader in the context of the Middle East peace process,” notes Khalil Jahshan, president of the National Association of Arab Americans.

Marzook, he says, had called for Hamas participation in this year’s Palestinian elections in Jordan just before he was arrested in New York. (Hamas later boycotted the elections, which was swept by Arafat and his mainstream Fatah group.)

Marzook, a resident of the U.S. state of Virginia for the past 14 years, also objected to a bombing campaign against Israel earlier this year. Some 63 people were killed by Islamist suicide bombers.

Judge Duffy, however, disagreed with Marzook’s contention that he is a political leader of Hamas, divorced from the apparently more hardline military wing. He said in his ruling there was more than enough evidence that Marzook participated in “the conspiracy called Hamas”, and that the U.S. government’s case in extraditing him was therefore valid.

“The indiscriminate bombing of buses laden with civilians and other such types of attacks targeted at civilians do not advance any political motive other than as terrorist acts,” Duffy wrote.

But Cohen argues that, while Marzook awaits his appeal, the image of Hamas may change within the United States, from one as an extremist terrorist group to that of a partner in the Middle East peace process.

“I think (U.S. President) Bill Clinton or his replacement, and Shimon Peres or his replacement, are going to have to market a new image for Hamas,” Cohen argues. “It is difficult vilifying or demonising someone who is going to be a partner for years to come.”

Cohen notes that such a transformation has already befallen Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Chairman Yasir Arafat. Derided as a terrorist in the United States for years, Arafat this month was embraced by Clinton on a visit to the White House and praised by Peres as “a partner in peace”.

For Musa Abu Marzook, the question now is whether the U.S. appeals process will grant him enough time to be similarly transformed.