Snowden has publicly claimed he will be tortured or killed. Holder has assured Russia he won't

[truedelphi]

76. Eric Holder - Death Squad defender -

Eric Holder: death-squad defender
Submitted by WW4 Report on Thu, 11/20/2008 - 02:34

Andean Theater

The New York Times reports Nov. 19 2008: "President-elect Barack Obama's transition team has signaled to Eric H. Holder Jr., a senior official in the Justice Department in the Clinton administration, that he will be chosen as attorney general... Mr. Holder would be the first African-American to serve as the nation's top law enforcement official." Unfortunately, he would also be the first AG to have defended a multinational corporation in a lawsuit over collaboration with paramilitary death-squads—specifically Chiquita Brands in a case over its payments to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a State Department-recognized "terrorist organization."

On Nov. 6—days before news of the unconfirmed appointment—Dan Kovalik writing for the Huffington Post noted recent recommendations from Human Rights Watch for the incoming administration's Justice Department to help dismantle Colombia's paramilitary networks. He finds:

Do not expect these recommendations to be carried forward if Eric Holder decides to forgo his lucrative corporate law practice at Covington & Burling and accept the U.S. Attorney General position for which many believe he is the top contendor. Eric Holder would have a troubling conflict of interest in carrying out this work in light of his current work as defense lawyer for Chiquita Brands international in a case in which Colombian plaintiffs seek damages for the murders carried out by the AUC paramilitaries - a designated terrorist organization. Chiquita has already admitted in a criminal case that it paid the AUC around $1.7 million in a 7-year period and that it further provided the AUC with a cache of machine guns as well.

Indeed, Holder himself, using his influence as former deputy attorney general under the Clinton Administration, helped to negotiate Chiquita's sweeheart deal with the Justice Department in the criminal case against Chiquita. Under this deal, no Chiquita official received any jail time. Indeed, the identity of the key officials involved in the assistance to the paramilitaries were kept under seal and confidential. In the end, Chiquita was fined a mere $25 million which it has been allowed to pay over a 5-year period. This is incredible given the havoc wreaked by Chiquita's aid to these Colombian death squards.

According to Mario Iguaran, the Attorney General of Colombia, Chiquita's payments to the AUC paramilitaries led to the murder of 4000 civilians in the banana region of Colombia and furthered the growth of the paramilitaries throughout Colombia and their violent takeover of numerous Colombian regions. Iguaran, in response to the claims of both Chiquita and Eric Holder himself that Chiquita was somehow forced to pay "protection" to the paramilitaries, ...stated unequivocally that "[t]his was not payment of extortion money. It was support for an illegal armed group whose methods included murder." See, Christian Science Monitor [April 11, 2007], "Chiquita Case Puts Big Firms on Notice."