Dutch foreign affairs minister Uri Rosenthal made headlines as he responded to some questions (about the extradition of Rop Gonggrijp to the US) from two members of the Dutch Parliament.
Do you agree [...] that the Netherlands will not cooperate with criminal procedures of the American authorities, such as in the case of potential suspects connected to Wikileaks. If not, why not?
Answer: In case the US indicts mr Gonggrijp at any point in the future and requests his extradition, the request will be studied to see if the Netherlands can cooperate. Such a request would need to specify, among other things, the criminal offenses under investigation, such that the American interests of prosecution can be weighed against the interests of the accused. This process has adequate checks and balances. I therefore do not exclude the possibility that The Netherlands will cooperate.
About the answers our foreign minister gave: I think there is not much else he could have said. Was anyone really expecting him to say: “We have an extradition treaty with the US, and we have laws in place that deal with extradition requests. But if there is ever an extradition request for Gonggrijp we’ll ignore all that and we’ll tell you now that we’ll never extradite him, no matter what.” ?
And this is all about this: