Word: kidnapings
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When I was a soldier, I was taught: "If it moves, salute it. If it doesn't move, whitewash it." Today's militant, if unsoldierly extremists have a simpler philosophy: whether it moves or not, kidnap it. We have seen the kidnaping of a Goya, a Fellini film, the corpse of a great comedian, an Italian political leader. We are shocked, but perhaps some of the shock comes from awareness that we are not shocked enough. We have already imagined most conceivable outrages against law and decency, or had them imagined for us in drugstore bestsellers or films...
Moro's letter argued that "the doctrine according to which advantage must not accrue to kidnaping does not apply to political circumstances where a sure and incalculable damage is done not only to the person but to the state itself." It pointed out that all other countries, except Israel and West Germany, had saved kidnap victims "in a positive way." It referred to past political exchanges between the Soviet Union and Chile, "many exchanges of spies," and the expulsion of dissidents from the Soviet Union...
Even as Italians puzzled over the letter and awaited the terrorists' next message, the country seemed to have recovered its nerve after the initial shock of the kidnaping and the murder of Moro's five bodyguards. The trial in Turin of 15 Red Brigades defendants resumed as scheduled, and the government intensified its effort to strengthen its legal recourses against terrorism. Following new measures introduced the week before-life imprisonment for kidnap-murder and wider discretionary powers for police-the Justice Ministry announced a $94 million plan aimed at improving the judicial system and prison facilities...
...understandable question. An estimated 25,000 to 100,000 child-snatching cases occur every year, and so the parent who observes court orders risks ending up the loser. In most states, kidnaping of children by one of their parents is not treated as a crime. Parents, even those denied custody in divorce arrangements, are exempted from the federal kidnap law. Lacking jurisdiction, the FBI almost never helps locate or return abducted offspring, even when state lines are crossed. Maybe, says Mrs. Downer, "I should tell them I've had three cars stolen, and their names are Joslyn, Heather...
...Michigan, whose House Judiciary subcommittee has buried several federal bills: "Whenever there is onerous conduct, everybody says there ought to be a law." Last week the influential American Bar Association House of Delegates solidly repudiated, 135 to 82, a resolution that would subject parental child snatchers to federal kidnap laws. Cried Washington, D.C., Attorney Lee Loevinger: "Do we really want to make loving parents into federal criminals...