Re Richard Eckermann
| Jurisdicción | Guatemala |
| Fecha | 28 Mayo 1929 |
| Número de expediente | Case No. 189 |
| Emisor | Corte Suprema (Guatemala) |
(Medrano, Muñoz, Paredes, Rodríguez, Girón Z., Ramírez, JJ.)
Extradition — Political Criminals — Crimes Committed to Combat Communism.
The Facts.—This was a case in which Germany sought the extradition of a German fugitive from Guatemala for what the fugitive claimed was a political crime. In 1923, there was a secret organisation of former German officers, known as the Black Army, whose purpose was to keep order and repress Communism and Bolshevism in Germany. Eckermann was a prominent member of the organisation. When one Fritz Beyer tried to enter this Black Army, the other officers distrusted him as a spy. They decided that he knew too much to be safe. Thereupon Eckermann gave directions to his subordinate, a certain Bolt, as a result of which Bolt enticed Beyer into a solitary place, where he shot and buried him. The crime was not discovered for more than a year. Bolt was condemned to death but received a commutation of sentence. Four others were imprisoned for complicity in the murder. Eckermann escaped to Mexico and then, when extradition was attempted, to Guatemala. When he was arrested, certain Germans resident in Guatemala tried to aid him, with the result that the Secretary of Foreign Affairs decided to hear the opinion of the Council of State. The majority of this body concurred in a statement of 24 December, 1928, that extradition should not be allowed since the crime was political.1 After the German legation agreed that Eckermann should be tried only for the crime for which he was surrendered and that, despite the German laws, the death penalty should not be inflicted, the Ministry of Foreign Relations, on the advice of the Council of Ministers, decided that extradition should be granted.2 Eckermann applied to the Supreme Court to prevent surrender, claiming again that the crime was a political one and that it should be considered with regard to the abnormal conditions which prevailed in Germany after the War in consequence of the social, political and financial upheavals.
Held: that the relief asked for should be refused. Since this was solely a common crime, the Executive Power had full right to grant extradition. The Court approved the following statement of the Ministry: “That the fact that Eckermann formed part of a patriotic society secretly organised to cooperate in the defence of his country, cannot in any way give the character of political crimes to those committed by its members. … Universal law qualifies as political crimes sedition, rebellion and other offences which tend to change the form of Government or the persons who compose it; but it cannot be admitted that ordering a man killed with treachery, unexpectedly and in an uninhabited place, without form of trial or authority to do it, constitutes a political crime.”1
1 The statement was as follows: “The organisation of the Black Army did not have for its purpose individual or personal interests, but the public interest of defending the Fatherland in case of attack by its neighbours and of preventing the increase of communism, of Bolshevism, whose ideas were considered dangerous to the social and political good of the Nation. It is not a case, then, of immoral purposes subject to penal sanctions of the common order. It is a question of the Fatherland. It was intended to defend the independence, the honour, and the interests of the Nation. … Consequently if to defend the Black Array they were forced by the circumstances to commit criminal actions, these necessarily ought to be considered as connected with the principal act or crime of which mention has been made [the work of the Black Army].” Article 30 of the Guatemalan Constitution provided that “extradition is prohibited for political crimes or connected common ones.”
2 In this decision it was stated: “The act for which Richard Eckermann is prosecuted constitutes a crime of common order, condemned and punished by the laws of all civilised countries. Although there is no treaty of extradition between Guatemala and Germany, there should be applied the principles of International Law which authorise States to surrender reciprocally individuals accused of such crimes, against whom there is an order of arrest of a competent court based on the respective laws. … The Government of Germany has offered reciprocity in cases which may occur in the future.”
1 See also Argentine case of Bautista Damiani (14 July, 1930), 158 Fallos 73, granting extradition to Italy under treaty despite the claim of the accused that his illegal appropriation of property was a political crime.
