The Epoch Times interviewed one of the plaintiff’s attorneys, Dr. Alejandro Cowes.
Can you tell us briefly about this case and the ruling?
In short, in 2006, Judge Araoz de Lamadrid courageously accepted a complaint from the Association of the Study of Falun Dafa in Argentina, which lead to the investigation and substantiation of the terrible crimes of genocide and torture being committed in Mainland China by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) against Falun Gong practitioners.
The judge has been faithful to the current trend of international law, in effect, to provide access to the pursuit of justice for victims of crimes against humanity, which is impossible in the country where the victims live and where they suffer such extreme persecution.
Last Friday, after four years of arduous investigation, Judge de Lamadrid ordered the indictments of, and issued arrest warrants for Jiang Zemin and Luo Gan, former leader and former Secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs of the Central Committee of the CCP respectively.
What are the immediate consequences of the resolution?
It was taken into account that both of the accused parties can neither be detained or extradited from China, because the same political apparatus which instigated the persecution persists in enforcing it.
However, when either of the two travel abroad, they can immediately be detained and put in solitary confinement: this order is already set in place with Interpol.
Actual extradition depends on the existence of a treaty with each individual country or, in the absence of such, the willingness of the country to cooperate, where either of these two would happen to be at the time.
And what then: once they would be extradited?
The judge would effect a signed declaration and then would decide on their trial.
Are there precedents for a case like this?
In the case of Argentina, at the legal level, it is the first time extraterritoriality has been accepted in the handling of a crime. Globally, the case is also unique in the sense that it brings together the application of universal jurisdiction, the recentness of the crimes, and the first arrest warrant among the many crimes of which the communist dictatorship in China is accused.
There is a very similar case in Spain, in which Judge Ismael Moreno sent, via diplomatic channels, a rogatory letter [letter of request] to those accused, but the arrest warrant is still pending and the deadline for them to respond is not up yet.
In particular, besides the legal precedent, what stands out is the magnitude of the crimes being reported, involving the extreme victimization of at least 100 million innocent people, are in danger of being arrested illegally, tortured and even risk being killed for their organs, as part of an extensive, systematic persecution aimed at uprooting them from their legitimate spiritual belief.
