File No. 21558/10.
Ambassador Straus to the Secretary of State.
Constantinople, October 18, 1909.
Sir: On the 8th instant I received your cable of the 7th, wherein you informed me among other things that the governor of New Jersey has telegraphed the department that Rizk was never naturalized as an American citizen, and asked me to present the matter informally to the foreign office and learn if the Government is willing to surrender Rizk, and at the same time to give it to understand that in a similar case our Government might not be able to reciprocate, also [Page 599] to inquire as to the possibility of his trial and punishment in Egypt or wherever he should be found. You added further that the department is desirous of securing from Turkey a clear recognition of application of the extradition treaty to Egypt, irrespective of the outcome of this particular case.
I took the matter up informally with the Sublime Porte, and cabled you on the 9th instant to the effect that if Rizk is a Turkish subject it could not consent to his extradition nor could it ask the Egyptian authorities to do so, etc. Under the Ottoman law the Porte claims it can not try one of its subjects for a murder committed in a foreign land, unless the victim was also a Turkish subject. I therefore cabled you on the 12th of October to advise me if the person murdered was a Turkish subject. On the 14th I received your cable of the 13th wherein you informed me that upon the request of the Turkish Legation the department issued an extradition certificate, expressly stating that it was done under the existing treaty of extradition of 1874, and you further state “Department regards this as decisive of point that treaty now valid and operative as between Turkey and United States, and nothing should be said which would indicate to Turkey that department has any doubts upon this question. Department now only concerned in securing recognition from Turkey that treaty applies to Egypt. Secure such information as may be obtainable regarding Egyptian law as to punishment of Rizk in Egypt.”
The legal adviser of the Porte made the claim that as the treaty of extradition was negotiated together with and on the same day—August 11, 1874—as the treaty of naturalization, and as the latter treaty was not accepted and proclaimed by our Government, the former treaty fell with it. In 1888 I made a report on extradition (see Moore on Extradition, Vol. I, p. 815), where I referred to this claim of the Porte and stated then that I could see no such connection between the two treaties, and that there is no evidence of such connection in the contents of the treaties themselves. I brush this objection aside as having absolutely no basis.
As to your instruction for “securing recognition from Turkey that the treaty applies to Egypt,” the Porte admits that if valid here it is valid there; but the fact is the relationship of the Government of Turkey to the Government of Egypt is so remote that I feel almost sure that the Turkish Government would not make a request which would have any effect upon the Egyptian Government. The most it would or could do would be to say to the Egyptian Government that it would be pleased if so and so could be done. This the Sublime Porte has promised us it will do in this case, in the event the victim is an Ottoman subject. I have learned that at various times the Egyptian Government has refused to deliver up to the Turkish Government persons condemned for political crimes. I have made every effort through sources available here to answer your request to secure information regarding Egyptian law as to the punishment of Rizk in Egypt, but I have been unable to secure the desired information, as Egypt has an entirely different set of laws, and such books as we have been able to consult—among which the Egyptian code of criminal procedure—are silent upon that subject.
[Page 600]Before doing anything further in this matter, I shall await your instructions.
I have, etc.,