‘When Is a Terrorist?’

Regarding your editorial (March 26), “When Is a Terrorist?” in favor of the extradition of Irish Republican activist Liam Quinn and the changes to our extradition treaty with Britain, you neglect to mention one vital factor: the Northern Ireland legal system is a mockery of all the basic principles of English and American justice.

Quinn would be subject to a non-jury trial with sole judgment resting with a single judge who would most likely be a member of the Orange Order, the anti-Catholic Irish organization that has dominated Northern Ireland’s life.

Any kind of hearsay evidence would be allowed, including testimony by paid known-perjurers. In this system sophisticated methods of torture in order to rescind the confession (even though the regular use of such methods has been shown by Amnesty International and there are an extraordinarily high number of “confessions” from people who claim torture).

Now, given the circumstances, it is no wonder that neither our judicial system nor the Senate Foreign Relations Committee are eager to scrap the political protection our current extradition treaty offers.

Would you send George Washington, labeled in his day a “terrorist” by England, to the injustice of such a British colonial system?

STEPHEN A. SCOTT

Calabasas