by Joe Wilhelm Jr.
Staff Writer
Professors should be careful what they ask for.
Florida Coastal School of Law Assistant Professor David Pimentel asked students in his “International Rule of Law” seminar to write a paper relating to international law. Second year student Andrei Nana presented an idea for a paper on an issue from his native country, Romania.
Former Romanian spy, and now U.S. scientist, Constantin Rauta was sentenced to death for treason in 1974 and the High Court of Romania recently upheld the decision despite the country abolishing the death penalty in 1990.
“This was a case that fell through the cracks. Spies are a segment of the population that are often overlooked,” said Nana. “I just want to try to raise the issue and examine both sides of it.”
The examination of the issue will take place at Florida Coastal School of Law at noon March 24. The School’s Criminal Law and International Law Societies will join with Nana in presenting, “The Rauta Case: An American Scientist on Death Row in the European Union.”
The event will begin with a description by Nana of Rauta’s background and how he became sentenced to death row. This will be followed by an appearance by Rauta himself.
“I have been in contact with (Rauta) through e-mail,” said Nana. “He hopes to get this resolved at the European Court of Rights in Strasbourg-Cedex, France.”
After Nana and Rauta present their information, a panel of International Law Professors from Florida Coastal School of Law, including David Pimentel, Morse Tan, Christopher Roederer and John Knechtle, will discuss the case. The program will finish with the arrival of Romanian litigator Horea Dragiou via video link.
“The Romanian High Court upholding his death sentence seems to be another example of a judicial system refusing to come to grips with the fundamental issues of justice that they should be looking at,” said Pimentel. “It’s the fundamental problem of how you deal with bad justice that was done before the conflict, now in the post-conflict environment.”
The sentence was originally handed down when Rauta was working as the Chief of the Foreign Intelligence Directorate. He was sent to the U.S. in preparation of Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu’s visit to the U.S. Rauta was entrusted with diplomatic bags that contained sealed letters of the state in them, which he planned to use as leverage to get his wife and daughter brought to the U.S. after he defected. When Rauta landed in New York, he approached police and told them he wanted to defect.
His bargaining chips, the diplomatic bags, would soon vanish, though, because sealed, diplomatic materials must be returned to their country of origin as part of the Geneva Conventions, which set standards for international law.
It was ruled in Romanian court that because he gave away the diplomatic bags he was guilty of treason. His assets were seized and his rank in the Romanian Army was stripped.
As a U.S. citizen and scientist, Rauta has contributed to the development of the Hubble, LANDSAT, EOS and Kobe satellite systems.
Rauta has been able to return to Romania due to two significant events: the fall of Communism in 1989 and Romanian abolishing the death penalty in 1990 and joining the European Union.
“There isn’t the danger of Mr. Rauta being taken to death row now because they don’t have the means or the process to enforce the sentence,” said Pimentel. “There is something else to this. When you are concerned about establishing a rule of law in a place then the idea that a judicial decision is going to be ignored does violence to that. If we are going to ignore this judicial decision then can’t we ignore that one. Which ones do we pay attention to?”
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