WASHINGTON - A US citizen sentenced to die by an Iraqi court for his role in kidnapping three Romanian journalists cannot be protected under US legal authority, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.
Mohammed Munaf, 53, a US national of Iraqi heritage, was convicted of being an accomplice in the kidnapping of three Romanian journalists and was sentenced in October to death by hanging.
Munaf had been working for the Romanian journalists as a guide when they were snatched in March 2005. He was kept hostage with them for 55 days, and was detained by the US army shortly after the reporters were released.
He is scheduled to hang once he is handed over from US custody in Iraq to Iraqi authorities.
A federal judge previously ruled that Munaf did not fall under US legal authority because his jail is overseen by a multinational force that includes troops from other countries.
The federal appeals court upheld that ruling.
"American citizenship cannot displace the fact of a criminal conviction in a non-United States court and permit the district court to exercise jurisdiction," the court said.
It based its ruling on a 1948 Supreme Court case, Hirota v. MacArthur, which found that after World War II US courts had no jurisdiction over Japanese citizens held in Japan and tried by a military tribunal authorized by General Douglas MacArthur.
The three-judge panel hinted in its ruling that the Supreme Court might take up the matter.
"In holding that the district court lacks jurisdiction, we do not mean to suggest that we find the logic of Hirota especially clear or compelling, particularly as applied to American citizens ... But we are not free to disregard Hirota simply because we may find its logic less than compelling."
The Supreme Court refused to intervene in November when Munaf's lawyers asked the high court to suspend the transfer of their client to Iraqi authorities until a federal court ruled on the issue of legal custody.
04/06/2007 21:20 GMT