The Rudowitz Extradition Case whom the former shot during a demon stration against the government of the Canton of Ticino. At the time of the extradition proceedings, it was clear that the killing of Rossi was not neces sary to the success of the uprising. But the court chose to look at it from the viewpoint of Castioni at the time of the shooting. In 1894 the United States had to deal with a case which was in most respects parallel with that of Rudowitz. General Ezeta, who had taken refuge in the United States, was demanded by the Salvadorean government for having ordered the hanging of one Henriquez as a spy, and the robbery of the Inter national Bank of Salvador. This gov ernment refused to extradite him, on the ground that his acts were political offenses. In 1893 the United States refused to extradite one Guerra, demanded by the Mexican government on charges of mur der, arson, and robbery. Guerra was a member of a band which raided San Ignacio, and after killing several per sons set fire to and looted the town. In refusing to comply with the Mexican request for his extradition, our Secre tary of State, Mr. Sherman, said that as the evidence showed "the expedition to have been revolutionary in its origin and purpose," the offense of being "a member thereof" was of "a purely politi cal character, outside of the purview of the extradition treaty between the United States and Mexico." (For. Rel. 1897, p. 406.) The inherent difficulty in dealing with the question of extradition for political crimes arises from the mixed nature of some political crimes, *. e., "relative political crimes" or d/lits complexes. It is impossible to lay down a rule which will enable us to tell whether these are mainly political or mainly
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criminal. The Attentat is one of the efforts to deal with this difficulty. This was an amendment to the Belgian ex tradition law providing that the murder of the head of a foreign government or of a member of his family should not be considered a political crime. This was enacted in 1856 and was called forth by the refusal of the Belgian government in 1854 to extradite two persons charged with an attempt to murder Napoleon III. More rational was the attempt by Switzerland to deal with the difficulty. In her extradition law of 1892, the principle of the non-extradition of per sons charged with political crimes is recognized, but it is provided that if the Bundesgericht, the Supreme Court of Switzerland, decides that the domi nant feature of the crime partakes more of the nature of an ordinary crime than of a political offense, the crime is an extraditable one. The most sweeping of the attempts was made by Russia. In 1881, she in vited the powers to hold an International Conference at Brussels for the purpose of considering a provision, favored by her, that no murder should be considered a political crime. As Great Britain and France refused to take part in such a conference it never met. Had the Rus sian idea been adopted, it would have been an arbitrary way of dealing with the difficulty, as some of the most typically political crimes—crimes com mitted with a political motive and in furtherance of a political purpose— would thus become extraditable. The United States is impelled by its origin and traditions not to extradite political offenders, even though murder be among the list of their offenses, provided their offense is committed against the oppressions of government and not against government itself.
