In Absentia - Examples

Examples

Examples of people convicted in absentia are:

• Cesare Battisti, thriller author and former member of the Italian militant group Armed Proletarians for Communism, sentenced to life. (Arrested on March 18, 2007 in Brazil, and then released on 9 June 2011.)
• Krim Belkacem, Algerian Berber resistance fighter and politician. (Assassinated on October 18, 1970 in West Germany.)
• Heinrich Boere, a Dutch or German convicted by a Dutch court in 1949 of murders on the part of the World War II German occupation authorities in the Netherlands. German courts refused to extradite Boere to the Netherlands due to his possibly having German citizenship.
• Martin Bormann, Nazi official and Hitler's private secretary, sentenced to death at the Nuremberg war crimes trials. (Disappeared on May 2, 1945. Remains were uncovered in late 1972 in West Berlin.)
• Dési Bouterse, Suriname's former military leader, sentenced to 16 years in prison and fined $2.18 million in the Netherlands for cocaine trafficking.
• Ahmed Chalabi, former Iraqi oil minister, convicted in Jordan for bank fraud.
• Bettino Craxi, Italian statesman and former prime minister, sentenced in absentia to 27 years in jail in Italy, who previously fled to Hammamet in Tunisia in 1994, and remained a fugitive there, protected by Ben Ali's regime.
• Ryszard Kukliński, a Polish colonel, Cold War spy and communist whistleblower, sentenced in absentia to death as a traitor in 1984 by communist court in The People Republic of Poland. He was finally acquitted in 1997. It was said his activity was in a State of Necessity.
• Ira Einhorn, anti-war activist and murderer, who challenged his conviction in Pennsylvania. (Escaped to Europe, but was extradited from France back to the US on July 20, 2001.)
• John Factor, a British-born American gangster and con man, charged with securities fraud in England and tried and sentenced to 24 years in prison in absentia after fleeing back to the United States.
• Charles de Gaulle, sentenced first to four years in prison and later to death in 1940 for treason against the Vichy Regime.
• Oleg Gordievsky, sentenced to death by the Soviet Union for treason after fleeing to the United Kingdom in 1985.
• Boļeslavs Maikovskis, Latvian Nazi collaborator sentenced to death by a Soviet court in 1965 (while living in the United States).
• Mengistu Haile Mariam, former dictator sentenced to death in Ethiopia for genocide.
• Jamal Jafaar Mohammed, sentenced to death by a Kuwaiti court for the 1983 Kuwait bombings. He is currently serving in Iraq's parliament as a member of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Islamic Dawa Party.
• Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, sentenced to death in Jordan. (Killed on June 7, 2006 in Iraq.)
• Andrew Luster, convicted of rape after fleeing mid-trial.
• Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, convicted in the US after fleeing.
• Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, former president of Tunisia, sentenced to 35 years in prison along with his wife, Leïla Ben Ali.
• Bernardo Provenzano, Sicilian Mafia boss convicted of numerous murders during his 42 years as a fugitive.
• Michael Townley, Chilean DINA agent, has been convicted in 1993 by an Italian court in carrying out the 1975 Rome murder attempt on Bernardo Leighton. (Currently living under the United States Federal Witness Protection Program.)
• Sholam Weiss, sentenced to the longest federal prison term in United States history for fraud, money laundering and other crimes. (Extradited by Austria on June 20, 2002.)
• Irakli Okruashvili, Defense Minister of Georgia from 2004 to 2006 and a personal friend of Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili. Okruashvili returned to prominence when he formed an opposition party to the Georgian government and accused it of corruption and plotting assassinations. He was arrested days later on charges of extortion, bribe taking, and abuse of power, and released on $6 million bail pending trial. He flew to Europe, supposedly to seek medical treatment, but tried to find political asylum. He was denied asylum in Germany, but received it in France, which refused an extradition request from Georgia. He was tried in absentia, found guilty, and sentenced to 11 years imprisonment.
• Alexander Poteyev, ex-colonel of the Russian intelligence agency SVR, was sentenced in absentia to 25 years of imprisonment on the charge of high treason by Moscow court in 2011. His whereabouts are unknown, presumably he lives in the United States under protection of the US government.
• Kent Kristensen, Danish businessman was sentented in Romania in absentia to 7 years for not paying an official in a building project. He was arrested in Spain in 2011 when he tried to save his child which was abducted by her mother. He is serving his time at the Giurgiu maximum security prison. In March 2012 it was reported that the Romania denied him his medication