Extradition from Afghanistan to the United States - Haji Baz Mohammad Update

Haji Baz Mohammad, an international heroin kingpin and the first person extradited from Afghanistan to the United States, was sentenced last Friday to more than fifteen years in federal prison.^[1] Mohammad pled guilty in July to charges of conspiracy to transport over $25 million worth of heroin into the U.S. and other places from his illicit drug ring based in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan.^[2] Had Mohammad refused to plead guilty, he could have received a sentence of life imprisonment.^[3]

Mohammad admitted in his indictment that his drug enterprise was a form of jihad, or holy war, on the American people, because it traded American dollars for drugs that could possibly kill their buyers.^[4] Mohammad’s organization was closely tied to the Taliban of Afghanistan, exchanging financial support for protection for its opium crops, heroin laboratories and drug transportation routes.^[5] The organization utilized suitcases to transport its cargo to the U.S. and abroad between 1994 and 2000.^[6]

Drug Enforcement Agency administrator Karen Tandy called the sentencing a "demonstration of U.S. resolve to destroy the hold opium lords have on Afghanistan."^[7]

As we reported before, Mohammad’s case is a landmark event in the history of criminal extradition of suspects from Afghanistan to the United States. The two nations do not currently share a bilateral extradition treaty. In the absence of such a treaty, U.S. Prosecutors were forced to utilize the 1988 United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.^[8] The Convention allows for the a party requesting extradition from a party which does not share an extradition agreement, and yet requires one, to consider the Convention itself as a legal basis for extradition of any offense proscribed therein.^[9] Growing opium poppies and drug trafficking, both of which Mohammad is guilty, are offenses against Article 3 of the Convention. Thus, U.S. and Afghani officials properly used the Convention as a basis for Mohammad's extradition.^[10]

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^[1] AP Staff, Afghan drug lord sentenced to more than 15 years in prison, Associated Press Newswire, October 5, 2007, available at LEXIS, News Library, Wire News Services.
^[2] Id.
^[3] Id.
^[4] Reuters Staff, U.S. court imprisons Afghan drug lord for 15 years, Reuters Newswire, October 7, 2007, available at LEXIS, News Library, Wire News Services.
^[5] Id.
^[6] Id.
^[7] Id.
^[8] United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, Dec. 20, 1988, S. Treaty Doc. No. 101-4 (1990).
^[8] Id. at Art 6.
^[9] Id. at Art 3.
^[10] Id. at Art 6.