LAPD Extends Arm of the Law Across Borders

A Parisian arrested in a terrorist sweep by French police is the most recent California murder suspect who will stand trial in his native land with the help of a team of Los Angeles Police Department detectives.

The LAPD’s Foreign Prosecution Unit, instituted in 1985 to work with Mexican authorities to track down suspects who try to avoid arrest by fleeing across the border, has since widened its scope to include Central America and Europe.

The unit takes advantage of Article 4 of the Mexican Constitution--one detectives found to be similar to laws in El Salvador, France and Japan--that states that a Mexican citizen who commits a crime in another country that is also a crime in Mexico can be tried in Mexico.

‘We’ll Prosecute’

“The concept is protection of their own citizens,” Detective Art Zorilla, one of four detectives working in the unit, said of the laws. “They’re saying to us, ‘You bring your evidence here, and we’ll prosecute.’ ”

Unit detectives enter a case after murder investigators in outlying police divisions trace suspects to a foreign country, usually through the statements of relatives and friends or by mail sent to the United States by the suspect.

To bring the evidence to Latin American authorities, Zorilla and his colleagues translate hundreds of pages of police documents, including witness statements and autopsy reports, into Spanish for presentation to foreign prosecutors.

Since its inception 18 months ago, the unit has prepared 27 cases for foreign prosecution, all but two in Mexico. Their work has resulted in 14 arrests.

Lt. Keith Ross, who heads the detail, said police began research into Article 4 in 1985 after reviewing outstanding murder warrants and discovering that more than half the suspects had Spanish surnames and families in Mexico.

“A lot of detectives were not aware of the law since it doesn’t exist in the United States,” he said. “Except for very specific crimes, like hijacking and drug smuggling, our treaties with Mexico did not provide for extradition. Without Article 4, Mexico would be a sanctuary.”

In fact, suspects who flee to their native lands with sanctuary in mind find much less.

Napoleonic Law

For one thing, criminal suspects in Mexico are tried under Napoleonic law that provides that a defendant is guilty until proven innocent. Common law, left from the days of the Roman Empire when one decree held throughout the known world, prevails--unlike the United States where prosecution is based on legalities decided case by case.

A defendant in Mexico, unless somehow affiliated with the government, is held without bail if suspected of a crime carrying a prison sentence of five years or more and is tried without a jury.

While Mexican law does not provide for a death penalty, in El Salvador the punishment for murder is the firing squad.

“We, like all Americans, had lots of misconceptions until we worked with (authorities in other countries),” Ross said. “We found them to be legitimate, excellent investigators--unlike other agencies who deal with them in other areas (such as drug smuggling.)”

In the case of Luis Raul Castro, taken into custody in Mexicali, Mexico, recently for the 1980 rape and strangulation of a 7-year-old Pacoima girl, the arrest tactics used by Mexican police drew the admiration of unit Detective Gilbert Moya.

Telegram Used as Ploy

“They had followed him for a week, and after a while, he didn’t come out of his house,” Moya said. “So they sent a telegram, saying he had won the California Lottery. He came out.”

One of the unit’s first successes has resulted in a 10-year Mexican prison term for Juan Francisco Rocha, arrested last year for the 1975 slaying of his girlfriend who was doused with paint thinner and burned to death.

“That certainly is an equal sentence to what he would have gotten here,” Ross said. “He may have gotten less here.”

But unit detectives, whose fluency in Spanish is a requirement for joining the team, have asked for extra help in their most recent case involving a French citizen of Tunisian descent now in custody in Paris for the 1983 slaying of a Hollywood nightclub employee.

Dominique Jami, 29, was arrested in October during a sweep by Parisian police following terrorist bombings, Hollywood Division Detective Rick Swanston said.

Jami had been identified by Swanston as the gunman who on June 20, 1983, shot and killed Navinder Sing, a 29-year-old worker at the Voila nightclub in the Beverly Center.

While Jami will be prosecuted with Los Angeles police documents being translated by a Hollywood policeman proficient in French, his arrest for the murder stemmed from old-fashioned detective follow-up.

Police in Paris recognized Jami from a Los Angeles police poster left with them last summer by Swanston’s partner, who was in France on vacation.