Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-96-03127/USCOURTS-caDC-96-03127-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Omar Mohammed Ali Rezaq
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued November 21, 1997 Decided February 6, 1998 

No. 96-3127

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

OMAR MOHAMMED ALI REZAQ, A/K/A OMAR MARZOUKI,

A/K/A OMAR AMR,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 93cr00284-01)

Robert L. Tucker, Assistant Federal Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant, with whom A.J. Kramer, Federal Public Defender, was on the briefs.

John F. De Pue, Attorney, United States Department of 

Justice, argued the cause for appellee, with whom Mary Lou 

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Leary, United States Attorney, Joseph B. Valder, Assistant 

United States Attorney, and Scott J. Glick, Attorney, United 

States Department of Justice, were on the brief.

Before: WALD, SENTELLE and HENDERSON, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge WALD.

WALD, Circuit Judge: Omar Mohammed Ali Rezaq appeals 

his conviction on one count of aircraft piracy under 49 U.S.C. 

app. § 1472(n) (1994). In 1985, Rezaq hijacked an Air Egypt 

flight shortly after takeoff from Athens, and ordered it to fly 

to Malta. On arrival, Rezaq shot a number of passengers, 

killing two of them, before he was apprehended. Rezaq 

pleaded guilty to murder charges in Malta, served seven 

years in prison, and was released in February 1993. Shortly 

afterwards, he was taken into custody in Nigeria by United 

States authorities and brought to the United States for trial.

Rezaq raises seven issues on this appeal. He argues: (1) 

that the district court erred in permitting him to be prosecuted at all, as the air piracy statute under which he was 

prosecuted bars sequential prosecutions, and he had already 

been prosecuted in Malta; (2) that the air piracy statute bars 

the prosecution of defendants forcibly brought to the United 

States for the purpose of prosecution; (3) that the district 

court erred in applying a provision of the air piracy statute 

requiring that defendants receive life imprisonment (or the 

death penalty) if "death results" from their acts, as this 

provision only applies if certain additional jurisdictional requirements are satisfied; (4) that his trial was fatally tainted 

by the introduction of evidence relating to the passengers' 

deaths, and that this evidence should have been presented in 

a separate phase of the trial or, in the alternative, that it 

should have been presented in a less grisly form; (5) that 

publicity toward the end of his trial resulting from the crash 

of another airplane improperly affected the jury's deliberations; (6) that the district court erred in assessing the 

restitution he was to pay to his victims as part of his 

sentence; and (7) that the district court may have erred in its 

orders relating to the disclosure of classified government 

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documents to the defense. We find none of Rezaq's arguments persuasive, and thus affirm his conviction and sentence 

in their entirety.

I. BACKGROUND

Rezaq did not contest his guilt at trial, relying instead on 

the defenses of insanity and obedience to military orders. 

Thus, the following account of the hijacking was not contested 

at Rezaq's trial.

Rezaq is Palestinian, and was, at the time of the hijacking, 

a member of a Palestinian terrorist organization, which 

planned and ordered the hijacking. On the evening of November 23, 1985, Rezaq boarded Air Egypt Flight 648 in 

Athens. He was accompanied by two other hijackers; one of 

his confederates, named Salem, was the leader of the operation, and the name of the other is unknown. Shortly after the 

plane took off, the three produced weapons, announced that 

they were seizing the plane, and demanded that the captain 

fly it to Malta. A gun battle ensued between the hijackers 

and an Egyptian plainclothes sky marshal stationed on the 

plane, as a result of which Salem was killed and the sky 

marshal was wounded.

Rezaq then took charge of the hijacking. After the plane 

arrived in Malta, he separated the Israeli and American 

passengers from the others, and moved them to the front of 

the plane. He released a number of Egyptian and Filipino 

female passengers, as well as two wounded flight attendants. 

He then demanded that the aircraft be refueled; when the 

authorities refused, he announced that he would shoot a 

passenger every fifteen minutes until his demand was met.

Rezaq carried out his threat. He first shot Israeli national 

Tamar Artzi. Although he shot her twice, once in the head, 

she survived. Fifteen minutes later, he shot her companion, 

Nitzan Mendelson, also an Israeli; Ms. Mendelson died of her 

injuries nine days later. Rezaq then shot Patrick Baker, an 

American, but only succeeded in grazing his head. Two or 

three hours later, Rezaq shot Scarlett Rogenkampa United 

States citizen and an employee of the United States Air 

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Forcein the head, killing her. Some time later, he shot 

Jackie Pflug, also an American, in the head, injuring her very 

seriously. Rezaq shot his victims near the front door of the 

plane, and either threw them or let them fall onto the tarmac; 

this may explain why three of the five were able to survive, 

either by escaping (Artzi and Baker), or by feigning death 

(Pflug).

In the evening of November 24thabout a day after the 

hijacking beganEgyptian commandos stormed the plane. 

The operation seems to have been a singularly incompetent 

one. The commandos fired indiscriminately, and set off an 

explosive device of some kind, as a result of which the aircraft 

burst into flames. Fifty-seven passengers were killed, as was 

the third hijacker. Rezaq was injured, and was taken, with a 

multitude of injured passengers, to a hospital. There, he was 

identified as the hijacker by passengers, members of the 

crew, and several of his victims.

The authorities in Malta charged Rezaq with murder, attempted murder, and hostage taking. He pled guilty, and 

was sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment. For reasons unclear, Maltese authorities released him some seven years 

later, in February 1993, and allowed him to board a plane to 

Ghana. Rezaq's itinerary was to carry him from there to 

Nigeria, and then to Ethiopia, and finally to Sudan. Ghanaian officials detained Rezaq for several months, but eventually 

allowed him to proceed to Nigeria. When Rezaq's plane 

landed in Nigeria, Nigerian authorities placed him in the 

custody of FBI agents, who transported him on a waiting 

aircraft to the United States.

Rezaq was indicted and tried for air piracy in the District 

Court for the District of Columbia. At trial, Rezaq invoked 

the defenses of insanity and obedience to military orders. In 

support of his insanity defense, Rezaq presented evidence 

that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder 

("PTSD"). As witnesses, he called several members of his 

own family and three psychiatric experts; Rezaq himself also 

testified at length. Rezaq asserted that his PTSD sprang 

from numerous traumatic events he had experienced, first in 

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the Jordanian refugee camp in which he spent much of his 

youth, and later in Lebanon, where he was active in Palestinian revolutionary organizations from 1978 to 1985. The Lebanese experiences he described included witnessing the killing 

of hundreds of refugees by Israeli forces in Beirut in 1982; 

witnessing the killings of the populations of entire villages; 

and nearly being killed in a car bombing. Rezaq's family 

testified that when he left Jordan he was normal, friendly, 

and extroverted, but that when he returned from Lebanon he 

was pale, inattentive, prone to nightmares, antisocial, and had 

lost his sense of humor. Rezaq's psychiatric experts said that 

these changes in behavior were symptomatic of PTSD, and, 

based on their examination of Rezaq and on the testimony of 

other witnesses, they concluded that Rezaq was suffering 

from PTSD when he committed the hijacking in November 

1985. The United States presented two psychiatric experts 

of its own, who testified that Rezaq's symptoms were not as 

intense as those usually associated with PTSD, and that 

Rezaq was able to reason and make judgments normally at 

the time he hijacked the plane.

The jury did not credit Rezaq's defenses, and found him 

guilty of the one count with which he was charged, aircraft 

piracy in violation of 49 U.S.C. app. § 1472(n) (1994). At the 

time of Rezaq's prosecution, that section provided (it has 

since been amended):

(1) Whoever aboard an aircraft in flight outside the 

special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States commits 

an "offense," as defined in the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft, and is afterward 

found in the United States shall be punished

(A) by imprisonment for not less than 20 years; or

(B) if the death of another person results from the 

commission or attempted commission of the offense, by 

death or by imprisonment for life.

(2) A person commits 'an offense,' as defined in the 

Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of 

Aircraft, when, while aboard an aircraft in flight, he

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(A) unlawfully, by force or threat thereof, or by any 

other form of intimidation, seizes, or exercises control of, 

that aircraft, or attempts to perform any such act; or

(B) is an accomplice of a person who performs or 

attempts to perform any such act.

49 U.S.C. App. § 1472(n) (1994). Because death resulted 

from Rezaq's commission of the offense, § 1472(n)(1)(B) applied, and the district court sentenced Rezaq to life imprisonment. (The United States had not sought the death sentence.) The district court also ordered Rezaq to pay a total 

of $254,000 in restitution, an amount which it found to represent the financial cost to the victims of his crime.

Rezaq's first group of arguments on this appeal all derive 

from the international nature of the crime of air piracy. He 

argues, first, that the international treaty barring air piracy 

prohibits sequential prosecutions for the same offense, and 

that it was therefore impermissible for the United States to 

try him anew for crimes for which he had already been 

prosecuted in Malta. Second, he asserts that the United 

States manufactured jurisdiction over him by bringing him 

into its territory, and that section 1472(n)'s statement that it 

applies to those "found in the United States" bars the application of section 1472(n) to those forcibly brought to the United 

States specifically for trial on air piracy charges. Third, 

Rezaq avers that it was improper for the district court to 

apply section 1472(n)'s "death results" provision (that is, its 

provision requiring the imposition of the death sentence or of 

life imprisonment in cases in which death results), as that 

provision was only intended to apply if certain jurisdictional 

criteria were met.

Rezaq's next group of arguments relates to the conduct of 

his trial. The United States presented a range of evidence at 

Rezaq's trial relating to the deaths of the passengers shot by 

Rezaq, including photographs of the autopsy of one of them, 

Scarlett Rogenkamp. Rezaq argues, first, that the district 

court should have struck references to these deaths from the 

indictment; second, that the district court should have bifurcated his trial into one phase addressing the hijacking, and a 

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second addressing the resulting deaths; third, that the district court erred in not compelling the United States to 

stipulate that the deaths had occurred; and fourth, that the 

district court erred in allowing the United States to introduce 

the autopsy evidence. Rezaq also argues that the district 

court should not have allowed the jury to learn that 57 

passengers died when the Egyptian commandos stormed the 

plane. His last argument in this category claims that the 

district court should have declared a mistrial when, shortly 

before the jury began its deliberations, TWA Flight 800 

crashed under mysterious circumstances, fueling speculation 

about terrorist involvement.

Next, Rezaq argues that the district court erred in the 

manner in which it calculated the amount of his restitution, 

both in failing to consider his ability to pay, and in failing to 

demand more detailed proof of the amount of the victims' 

losses. Finally, the proceedings in the district court included 

a number of ex parte hearings and orders relating to the 

United States's obligations to produce classified materials to 

Rezaq. The district court ruled that the United States could, 

in lieu of producing certain relevant classified documents, 

produce admissions of fact that summarized the relevant 

contents of these documents. Rezaq notes that he cannot 

examine the originals of these documents, and asks that we 

ensure that the admissions were an adequate substitute for 

the documents they replaced.

II. ANALYSIS 

A. Sequential Prosecution

We begin with Rezaq's argument that it was impermissible 

for the United States to try him a second time, as he had 

already been tried in Malta. Rezaq cannot base this argument on the Constitution's Double Jeopardy Clause, for two 

reasons. First, that clause does not prohibit sequential trials 

by different sovereigns. See United States v. Wheeler, 435 

U.S. 313, 317 (1978) (sequential prosecution in Indian tribal 

court and in federal court is not barred by the Double 

Jeopardy Clause); United States v. Richardson, 580 F.2d 

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946, 947 (9th Cir. 1978) (per curiam) (applying this holding to 

sequential prosecutions in Guatemalan and United States 

courts). Second, Rezaq was prosecuted in Malta for murder, 

attempted murder, and hostage-taking, but the United States 

prosecution was for air piracy. The offense of air piracy 

contains elementsrelated to the control of an airplanethat 

the crimes for which Rezaq was tried in Malta do not. This 

means, under the usual double jeopardy analysis, that the 

first prosecution does not bar the second. See United States 

v. Dixon, 509 U.S. 688, 696, 703-12 (1993); see also United 

States v. Rezaq, 899 F. Supp. 697, 703-04 (D.D.C. 1995) 

(conducting a detailed comparison of the elements of air 

piracy with those of the Maltese offenses).

Rezaq asserts, however, that this case is subject to a more 

exacting standard than the traditional double-jeopardy one. 

Section 1472(n), 49 U.S.C. app. § 1472(n) (1994), was enacted 

to implement the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful 

Seizure of Aircraft (also called the "Hague Convention"), Dec. 

16, 1970, 22 U.S.T. 1643, a multilateral treaty directed at 

preventing and punishing air piracy. See United States v. 

Yunis, 924 F.2d 1086, 1092 (D.C. Cir. 1991). Rezaq claims 

that both the Hague Convention and section 1472(n) incorporate a special ban on sequential prosecution that is more 

restrictive than the Double Jeopardy Clause, and argues that 

his prosecution on air piracy charges violates that ban.

It is certainly possible that a treaty could contain a double 

jeopardy provision more restrictivethat is, barring more 

prosecutionsthan the Constitution's Double Jeopardy 

Clause. In Sindona v. Grant, 619 F.2d 167, 178 (2d Cir. 

1980), for instance, the court so read a double jeopardy 

provision in an extradition treaty with Italy. See also United 

States v. Jurado-Rodriguez, 907 F. Supp. 568, 577 (E.D.N.Y. 

1995). But Rezaq has not shown that the Hague Convention 

falls in this category.1

__________

1 We also note that Malta was not a party to the Hague Convention at the time of the hijacking. Because we do not agree with 

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Rezaq points to the provisions of the Hague Convention 

that require states to either extradite or prosecute offenders, 

and argues that they imply that a more restrictive double 

jeopardy rule applies. For instance, he cites Article 4(2), 

which provides: "Each Contracting State shall likewise take 

such measures as may be necessary to establish its jurisdiction over the offence in the case where the alleged offender is 

present in its territory and it does not extradite him pursuant 

to Article 8...." Rezaq argues that this provision implies 

that extradition and prosecution are mutually exclusive options: a Contracting Party may not both extradite an offender and prosecute him. This rule, he asserts, in turn implies 

that the Hague Convention intended to bar all sequential 

prosecutions, whether they occur after extradition or not.

The first step in Rezaq's argument is flawed: the Hague 

Convention's requirement that a state either prosecute offenders or extradite them does not imply a bar on (at 

different times) doing both. In general, a requirement to "do 

A or B" does not necessarily imply a bar on doing both A and

B; one must look at the context and the purpose of the 

requirement to decide whether such a bar is meant. For 

example, if a religious organization requires that its members 

either do volunteer work or make cash contributions to 

charity, the organization clearly does not mean to foreclose 

them from doing both. The purpose of this hypothetical 

religious mandate is to ensure that believers try to do good 

deeds, and this purpose is served if a believer chooses to both 

do volunteer work and make charitable contributions. Cf. 

Foutz v. United States, 72 F.3d 802, 805 (10th Cir. 1995) 

(concluding, based on context, that a set of alternatives in a 

tax statute should not be read to be mutually exclusive); 

Phillip M. Kannan, Symbolic Logic in Judicial Interpretation, 27 U. MEM. L. REV. 85, 94 (1996).

Here, the context makes clear that the statute's injunction 

to extradite or prosecute is not meant to state mutually 

exclusive alternatives. The extradite-or-prosecute require-

__________

strictions on sequential prosecutions, we need not address the 

implications of this fact.

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ment is intended to ensure that states make some effort to 

bring hijackers to justice, either through prosecution or extradition. There is no indication that Article 4 is intended to 

go beyond setting a minimum, and limit the options of states; 

indeed, Article 4(3) specifically provides that "[t]his Convention does not exclude any jurisdiction exercised in accordance 

with national law." A reading of Article 4 that focuses on 

bringing hijackers to justice is also consistent with the Convention's (short) preamble, one clause of which states that 

"for the purpose of deterring [acts of air piracy], there is an 

urgent need to provide appropriate measures for punishment 

of offenders." Thus, the extradite-or-prosecute requirement 

is like the hypothetical donate-or-volunteer requirement described above; it is intended to ensure a minimum level of 

effort, and does not necessarily preclude the recipient of the 

mandate from doing more.

A reading under which the options of prosecution and 

extradition are mutually exclusive could also undermine the 

Convention's goal of ensuring "punishment of offenders." 

For instance, if a person is extradited from state A to state B, 

and B then discovers that a technical obstacle prevents it 

from prosecuting her, B should be able to return her to A for 

prosecution; any other reading of the treaty might allow a 

suspect to escape prosecution altogether. Or, to choose an 

example closer to the facts of this case, if state A tries and 

convicts a defendant for certain crimes associated with a 

hijacking (as Malta tried Rezaq for murder, attempted murder, and hostage-taking), there is no indication that A is 

barred from then extraditing her to B once she has served 

her sentence, so that B may try the defendant for different 

crimes associated with the same hijacking (as the United 

States tried Rezaq for air piracy).2

__________

2 Rezaq, of course, was not extradited at all. Thus, to prevail on 

this point, he would need to show both that options of extradition 

and prosecution are mutually exclusive, and that this bar extends to 

all successive prosecutions, whether or not a state actually obtains 

custody of a defendant through extradition. Because Rezaq cannot 

make out the first half of this argument, we need not address the 

second.

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The travaux préparatoires for the Hague Convention reinforce our conclusion that the treaty does not incorporate a 

special bar on sequential prosecution. They show that the 

treaty's negotiators considered and rejected the possibility of 

expressly barring sequential prosecutions through a ne bis in 

idem provision (a term for double-jeopardy provisions in 

international instruments; another term is non bis in idem). 

The states opposed to this idea, whose views carried the day, 

argued that "the principle was not applied in exactly the same 

manner in all States," and that "[i]n taking a decision whether 

to prosecute, and, similarly, a decision whether to extradite, 

the State concerned will, in each case, apply its own rule on 

the subject of ne bis in idem." INTERNATIONAL CIVIL AVIATION 

ORGANIZATION, LEGAL COMMITTEE, 17th Sess., Doc. 8877-LC/

161, at 8 (1970). This is, of course, exactly what the United 

States has done in applying its own double jeopardy rules.

Nor is there any indication that Congress, in enacting 

section 1472(n), read the Hague Convention differently, or 

intended to subject prosecutions under section 1472(n) to a 

heightened double jeopardy standard. The text and legislative history of section 1472(n) are both devoid of evidence 

pointing to such a conclusion. In the absence of any sign that 

either section 1472(n) or the Hague Convention undertook to 

impose a more stringent than usual double-jeopardy rule, we 

conclude that Rezaq's prosecution in Malta was not an obstacle to his subsequent prosecution, in this proceeding, on air 

piracy charges.

__________

A different argument might have more persuasive force. Article 

4(2) of the Hague Convention requires each state to "establish its 

jurisdiction over the offence in the case where the alleged offender

is present in its territory and it does not extradite him pursuant to 

Article 8" (emphasis added). A person who has already been tried, 

convicted, and punished for hijacking may no longer qualify as an 

"alleged offender," and so may not be subject to a second prosecution for the same crime. Rezaq would have some difficulty making 

this argument, however, as his trial in Malta was not for hijacking. 

As he did not make this argument, we will not address it further.

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B. Manufactured Jurisdiction

Rezaq's next argument is that section 1472(n) only applies 

to defendants that are "afterward found in the United 

States," and that he was not "afterward found in the United 

States," but involuntarily brought here for the express purpose of prosecution.

Under a rule known as the Ker-Frisbie doctrine, "the 

power of a court to try a person for crime is not impaired by 

the fact that he had been brought within the court's jurisdiction by reason of a 'forcible abduction'." Frisbie v. Collins,

342 U.S. 519, 522 (1952) (quoting Ker v. Illinois, 119 U.S. 436 

(1886)). This general rule does admit of some exceptions; for 

instance, an extradition treaty may provide that it is "the only 

way by which one country may gain custody of a national of 

the other country for the purposes of prosecution," United 

States v. Alvarez-Machain, 504 U.S. 655, 664 (1992), and we 

have also suggested that there may be a "very limited" 

exception for certain cases of " 'torture, brutality, and similar 

outrageous conduct.' " Yunis, 924 F.2d at 1092-93 (quoting 

United States ex rel. Lujan v. Gengler, 510 F.2d 62, 65 (2d 

Cir. 1975)).

Rezaq's argument is, in effect, that the phrase "afterward 

found in the United States" appearing in section 1472(n) 

creates a statutory exception to the Ker-Frisbie rule, and 

prevents the government from bringing a defendant into the 

United States for the express purpose of prosecution. Although we agree that Congress has the power to create 

statutory exceptions to the Ker-Frisbie doctrine, we do not 

think that section 1472(n) creates such an exception.

We first consider the United States's contention that Yunis

controls this case. Yunis addressed a similar question, but 

with one important difference. The defendant in Yunis had 

also been brought to the United States against his will for 

trial, and also argued that this meant that he had not been 

"afterward found in the United States" for purposes of section 1472(n). We concluded that the latter phrase "does not 

indicate the voluntariness limitation urged by Yunis," as the 

phrase was intended to implement the Hague Convention's 

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requirement that states extradite or prosecute hijackers 

"present in" their territory, and this requirement applies 

irrespective of how the hijacker came to be there. Yunis, 924 

F.2d at 1092.

But Yunis had originally been brought to the United States 

on "hostage-taking and other charges," and indicted for air 

piracy only while awaiting trial on these charges. The Yunis

court considered this fact of some significance, noting that its 

task was to "determine whether, once arrested and brought 

to this country on those other charges, Yunis was subject to 

prosecution under the Antihijacking Act as well." Id. Rezaq, unlike Yunis, was brought to the United States for the 

specific purpose of prosecution on hijacking charges. As 

authority for his contention that this distinction is controlling, 

Rezaq points to two cases in which courts reversed convictions because the United States had improperly manufactured 

an essential jurisdictional element of the offense. See United 

States v. Coates, 949 F.2d 104, 106 (4th Cir. 1991); United 

States v. Archer, 486 F.2d 670, 685-86 (2d Cir. 1973). In both 

Coates and Archer, the defendant was prosecuted for a crime 

an element of which was that the defendant must use "a 

facility in interstate ... commerce." (In Coates, the crime 

was murder for hire, 18 U.S.C. § 1958(b)(2); in Archer, it was 

a racketeering offense, 18 U.S.C. § 1952 (the "Travel Act").) 

In both instances, federal officials attempted to satisfy the 

interstate commerce element of the offense by traveling out 

of state and telephoning the defendant, Coates, 949 F.2d at 

105; Archer, 486 F.2d at 681-82; both cases found that this 

act amounted to manufacturing federal jurisdiction.

In both Coates and Archer, it was clear that, in creating 

jurisdiction, the government had contravened a central purpose of the underlying statute. For both statutes, it was 

appropriate to assume that the interstate commerce element 

was intended to allocate prosecutorial jurisdiction between 

federal authorities and state or local authorities, and therefore to limit federal jurisdiction. See Archer, 486 F.2d at 680 

(noting that the court is "bound ... to consider the demands 

of federalism" in construing the Travel Act). The Archer

court cited legislative history which further reinforced this 

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conclusion. At the time the statute was enacted, Attorney 

General Kennedy "told the Senate Judiciary Committee that 

the act was necessary to aid local law enforcement officials in 

many instances where 'the top men of a given criminal 

operation resided in one State but conducted their illegal 

activities in another.' " 486 F.2d at 679 (quoting Hearings on 

S. 1653-1658, S. 1665 before the Senate Judiciary Committee 

on the Attorney General's Program to Crush Organized 

Crime and Racketeering, 87th Cong., 1st Sess. (1961) at 15-

17). The government's action in Archer in itself creating the 

interstate commerce element thus extended the Travel Act 

beyond its intended purpose of permitting federal officials to 

assist state officials in prosecuting this class of crime.

By contrast, there are no strong policies underlying section 

1472(n) that render it inappropriate for the government to 

bring a defendant to the United States against his will for the 

specific purpose of prosecution. Neither the Hague Convention nor section 1472(n) appears to have been intended to 

establish a firm allocation of prosecutorial authority between 

nations. It is possible to imagine a treaty that would do so; 

for instance, in adopting a treaty to criminalize mislabeling of 

products, nations might decide that it was best for each 

country's consumer protection authorities to have the sole 

power to decide when and how mislabeling should lead to 

criminal charges, and draft the treaty accordingly. It might 

then be inappropriate for United States authorities to bring a 

foreign offender to the United States for trial under a criminal law enacted to implement this hypothetical treaty.

Here, however, we have already concluded that Article 4 of 

the Hague Convention, which addresses the assertion of 

national jurisdiction, is intended to establish a minimum set of 

circumstances in which states must assert jurisdiction, rather 

than to limit the circumstances in which they may do so. It 

follows that the Hague Convention was not intended to 

establish a compartmentalized scheme of national jurisdiction 

(like that in our hypothetical product-labeling treaty). Nor 

does section 1472(n) enact such a scheme. The Senate Report on the implementing legislation explained that section 

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1472(n) was included to implement Article 4(2) of the Convention, and therefore

includes a special provision establishing jurisdiction over 

the offense of hijacking wherever it occurs anywhere 

outside the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United 

States but the alleged offender is later found in the 

United States. This is the so-called universal jurisdiction 

provision which makes hijackers outlaws wherever they 

are found.

S. REP. NO. 93-13 at 3-4 (1973). This passageparticularly 

its statement that the provision "makes hijackers outlaws 

wherever they are found"indicates that Congress saw section 1472(n) as permitting broad assertion of jurisdiction over 

hijackers. It shows no signs that Congress envisioned the 

provision as allocating jurisdiction between the United States 

and other nations.3

The question remains, then: what does the phrase "afterward found in the United States" mean? As we observed in 

Yunis, this phrase appears to have been intended to implement the Hague Convention's requirement that the United 

States either extradite or prosecute all hijackers "present in" 

its territory. Yunis, 924 F.2d at 1092. Thus, the word 

"found" means only that the hijacker must be physically 

located in the United States, not that he must be first 

detected here. Rezaq notes that the fact that a defendant is 

present before a United States court necessarily implies that 

he is "found in the United States," so that the latter requirement will always be satisfied. But this does not mean that 

this language is empty of meaning; at a minimum, it confirms 

the rule, issuing from the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth 

Amendment and from the Due Process Clause, that a defen-

__________

3 Rezaq has not argued that he should have been brought to the 

United States through extradition, rather than being brought here 

by force. We therefore do not reach the question of whether the 

extradition provisions of the Hague Convention, when they apply, 

are the exclusive route by which a defendant may be brought into 

the United States. Cf. Alvarez-Machain, 504 U.S. at 664 (rejecting 

a similar claim under the United States's extradition treaty with 

Mexico).

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dant ordinarily may not be tried in absentia. See United 

States v. Gagnon, 470 U.S. 522, 526 (1985) (per curiam).4

C. The "Death Results" Provision

Rezaq avers that it was improper for the district court to 

apply section 1472(n)'s "death results" provision (that is, its 

provision requiring the imposition of the death sentence or of 

life imprisonment in cases in which death results), as the 

Hague Convention only permits states to punish additional 

crimes associated with a hijacking if certain jurisdictional 

prerequisites are met.

Rezaq's argument is based on the text of Articles 4(1) and 

4(2) of the Hague Convention. Article 4(1) provides that 

__________

4 Rezaq also points out that Congress revised section 1472(n) in 

1996, and asserts that our reading of the "afterward found" language would render much of the revised statute surplusage. The 

revised statute, which now appears at 49 U.S.C. § 46502(b), provides in relevant part:

(2) There is jurisdiction over the offense in paragraph (1) if

(A) a national of the United States was aboard the aircraft;

(B) an offender is a national of the United States; or

(C) an offender is afterwards found in the United States.

49 U.S.C. § 46502(b). Rezaq argues that, under our reading of 

"afterward found," every case will always be within section 

46501(2)(C), as a defendant who is before a United States court will 

always be present in the United States; thus, he argues, under this 

reading sections (A) and (B) of the statute become unnecessary. 

Congress may well have had good reasons to include the three 

alternative bases of jurisdiction in section 46501(2). For example, 

some of the United States's extradition treaties require that, in 

order to obtain custody over a fugitive, the United States present 

an arrest warrant to the other state. See, e.g., Agreement for the 

Surrender of Fugitive Offenders, Dec. 6, 1996, U.S.-Hong Kong, 

Art. 8, 36 I.L.M. 847, 852. Although we do not decide this question, 

we note that the United States might find it difficult to obtain an 

arrest warrant for a fugitive in Hong Kong under a statute that 

provides that the offender be "found in the United States"; the 

alternative bases of jurisdiction may thus serve as long-arm provisions.

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Contracting States "shall" establish jurisdiction over both the 

hijacking offense and "any other act of violence against 

passengers or crew" (a) "when the offence is committed on 

board an aircraft registered in that State," (b) "when the 

aircraft on board which the offence is committed lands in [the 

State's] territory with the alleged offender still on board," or 

(c) "when the offence is committed on board an aircraft leased 

without crew to a lessee" that is based in the state in 

question. When an offender is present in a state's territory 

without these additional connections being present, the Convention only requires the state to assert jurisdiction "over the 

offence," and not over the associated acts of violence. Article 

4(2).

Rezaq argues that, because none of the three jurisdictional 

elements listed in Article 4(1) is present here, this case must 

fall within Article 4(2); thus, he claims, it is not appropriate 

to try him for his "other acts of violence." But Article 4(3) 

expressly provides that the Convention "does not exclude any 

criminal jurisdiction exercised in accordance with national 

law." Thus, if Congress wished to reach "other acts of 

violence," the Hague Convention allowed it to do so.

It is abundantly clear that Congress intended for the 

"death results" provision of section 1472(n) to apply irrespective of whether the additional jurisdictional elements of Article 4(1) are present. Indeed, it would seem that the only

purpose of the "death results" provision of section 1472(n) is 

to reach cases in which these additional elements are absent, 

because if any of the Article 4(1) jurisdictional elements is 

present, the relevant statute is not section 1472(n), but section 1472(i). This is because section 1472(n) applies only to 

offenses committed "aboard an aircraft in flight outside the 

special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States." The "special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States" is defined in 49 

U.S.C. app. § 1301(34) (1994); that provision includes, among 

others, subsections that correspond to subsections (a), (b), 

and (c) of Article 4(1) of the Hague Convention. Thus, if the 

additional jurisdictional elements of Article 4(1) are present, 

the relevant criminal provision will be section 1472(i), which 

applies to hijackings within the "special aircraft jurisdiction of 

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the United States." 5See also H.R. REP. NO. 93-885, at 12 

(1974) (explaining that an adjustment to section 1472(i) was 

intended to "make the penalty which may be imposed for 

'aircraft piracy' committed within the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States identical with the penalty which may 

be imposed for such offense when committed outside the 

special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States."). The 

"death results" provision of section 1472(n) therefore cannot, 

as a rule, apply to cases in which the additional jurisdictional 

elements listed in Article 4(1) are present; such cases will 

instead come within section 1472(i), which has its own "death 

results" provision. Rezaq's proposed reading of the "death 

results" provision of section 1472(n) would thus render it 

totally irrelevant.

Rezaq also argues that applying the "death results" provision to this case would violate the normal jurisdictional rules 

of international law. International law imposes limits on a 

state's "jurisdiction to prescribe," that is, its ability to render 

its law applicable to persons or activities outside its borders; 

states may only exercise jurisdiction to prescribe under a 

limited number of theories. See RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF 

FOREIGN RELATIONS LAW § 401 (1987). This case, however, 

clearly falls within at least one such theory, the so-called 

"passive personality principle." That principle "asserts that a 

state may apply lawparticularly criminal lawto an act 

committed outside its territory by a person not its national 

where the victim of the act was its national." RESTATEMENT 

(THIRD) OF FOREIGN RELATIONS LAW § 402 cmt. g (1987). "The 

principle has not been generally accepted for ordinary torts 

or crimes, but it is increasingly accepted as applied to terrorist and other organized attacks on a state's nationals by 

reason of their nationality...." Id. Scarlett Rogenkamp 

was a United States citizen, and there was abundant evidence 

that she was chosen as a victim because of her nationality. 

__________

5

In 1994, 49 U.S.C. § 1472(i) and (n) became 49 U.S.C. 

§ 46502(a) and (b), respectively; the point made in the text remains 

valid as to these new provisions.

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This suffices to support jurisdiction on the passive personality 

theory.6

D. Evidence as to the Deaths of Passengers

Rezaq repeatedly sought to prevent the jury from learning 

about the deaths of passengers aboard the Air Egypt plane, 

and to insulate the jury from details of those deaths. He 

moved unsuccessfully to strike a reference in the indictment 

to the deaths of passengers he shot, and to bifurcate the trial 

into two phases, one addressing the hijacking, and the second 

the resulting deaths. He also offered to stipulate to the fact 

and manner of the hostages' deaths; the United States 

declined to stipulate, and the district court refused to compel 

it to do so. Rezaq also, without success, opposed the United 

States's efforts to introduce into evidence graphic details of 

Scarlett Rogenkamp's autopsy, including photographs, autopsy reports, and the testimony of a pathologist. Finally, 

Rezaq sought unsuccessfully to prevent the United States 

from adverting to the fact that 57 passengers died when the 

__________

6 Of course, Congress did not expressly limit the reach of the 

"death results" provision to cases in which the death was that of an 

American citizen killed because of her nationality. International 

law might permit the United States to assert jurisdiction in other 

situations; hijacking crimes are subject to universal jurisdiction, see

RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF FOREIGN RELATIONS LAW § 404, and the 

same may be true of deaths resulting from a hijacking. We do not 

decide this question.

Had we found that Congress exceeded its jurisdiction to prescribe under international law in enacting the "death results" 

provision, we would have then needed to decide whether we should 

enforce the "death results" provision nevertheless. Compare RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF FOREIGN RELATIONS LAW § 114 ("Where fairly 

possible, a United States statute is to be construed so as not to 

conflict with international law or with an international agreement of 

the United States") with Federal Trade Comm'n v. Compagnie de 

Saint-Gobain-Pont-a-Mousson, 636 F.2d 1300, 1323 (D.C. Cir. 

1980) (stating that we are "obligated to give effect to an unambiguous exercise by Congress of its jurisdiction to prescribe even if such 

an exercise would exceed the limitations imposed by international 

law").

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Egyptian commandos stormed the plane. Rezaq argues that 

the district court's rulings on all of these issues were erroneous.

1. Motion to Strike

We first discuss Rezaq's motion to strike from the indictment references to the deaths of Mendelson and Rogenkamp, 

and to the attempted killing of the other three passengers. 

Such motions are permitted under Federal Rule of Criminal 

Procedure 7(d); "a motion to strike surplusage [from the 

indictment] should be granted only if it is clear that the 

allegations are not relevant to the charge and are inflammatory and prejudicial." 1 CHARLES ALAN WRIGHT, FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 127, at 426 (1982); see also United 

States v. Huppert, 917 F.2d 507, 511 (11th Cir. 1990). Such a 

motion "is addressed to the discretion of the court," WRIGHT, 

supra, at 426; "[t]he standard under Rule 7(d) has been 

strictly construed against striking surplusage." United 

States v. Jordan, 626 F.2d 928, 930 n.1 (D.C. Cir. 1980).

The district court was well within its discretion in concluding that the prejudicial effect of these references did not 

outweigh their relevance. The district court observed that an 

element of air piracy under section 1472(n) is that the defendant "unlawfully, by force or threat thereof, or by any other 

form of intimidation, seizes, or exercises control of" an aircraft. See United States v. Rezaq, 908 F. Supp. 6, 9 (D.D.C. 

1995). The fact that Rezaq shot several passengers was 

clearly relevant to establishing that he had seized the aircraft, 

and later maintained control of it, by "force" or by "intimidation."

2. Motion to Bifurcate

Rezaq also moved to bifurcate the proceedings, and have 

the jury first consider whether he had committed the offense 

of air piracy, as defined in section 1472(n), and then decide 

whether the "death results" provision in section 1472(n)(1)(B) 

applied. He asserted that the "death results" provision was 

simply a penalty enhancement provision, so that such bifurcation was necessary. The district court disagreed, finding that 

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the "death results" provision was an element of the substantive offense defined by section 1472(n), and that severance 

should therefore be denied.

This court has wrestled with such problems before. In 

both United States v. Jackson, 824 F.2d 21 (D.C. Cir. 1987), 

and in United States v. Michael, 10 F.3d 838 (D.C. Cir. 1993), 

we were faced with the question of whether a statutory 

provision created two substantive offenses, or only one offense with the possibility of an enhanced penalty. Jackson 

involved a firearms statute that subjected those with previous 

convictions to higher penalties; Michael, a drug statute that 

applied higher penalties to possession of crack cocaine. The 

statutes we construed in Jackson and Michael and the one 

before us here all lack traits that might easily classify them 

as either creating two substantive offenses or creating one 

offense with an enhanced penalty. Each lacks " 'common 

indicia of sentence-enhancement provisions' " like "an explicit 

reference to a conviction ..., procedures for a sentencing 

hearing, a penalty derived as a multiplier of another offense, 

or a title indicating that it is a sentence-enhancement provision." Jackson, 824 F.2d at 23 (quoting United States v. 

Davis, 801 F.2d 754, 755-56 (5th Cir. 1986)). But the statutes 

also do not expressly define two separate offenses; instead, 

they merely " 'specif[y] one of the preceding classes of persons ... for different treatment.' " Jackson, 824 F.2d at 23 

(quoting United States v. Hawkins, 811 F.2d 210, 219 (3d Cir. 

1987)).

In Jackson, we found that the fact of a defendant's prior 

conviction was a sentence enhancement, not an element of a 

substantive offense. The legislative history of the statute 

expressly treated this factor as a sentence enhancement, and 

we also observed that it would be highly prejudicial for the 

jury to consider this factor in deciding the defendant's guilt. 

See Jackson, 824 F.2d at 25-26. In Michael, by contrast, 

introducing evidence at trial that a drug was cocaine base 

would not have created an unusual risk of prejudice. Instead, 

we reasoned that, because treating this factor as a sentence 

enhancement would "shift[ ] the issue [of the nature of the 

drug] from jury to court and deny[ ] the defendant the benefit 

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of the reasonable doubt standard, ... we are reluctant to 

infer such classification in the absence of a reasonably clear 

statement from Congress, at least for a fact embedded in the 

statutory section defining the crime and closely related to the 

circumstances of the crime." Michael, 10 F.3d at 842 (citation omitted). We found no such clear statement in the 

statute or its legislative history, and so treated this factor as 

an element of a distinct offense.

The evidence before us is somewhat more equivocal than 

that in Michael. Section 1472(n)(1)(A) and section 

1472(n)(1)(B) (in which the "death results" provision appears) 

are both introduced by the phrase "shall be punished," and 

both list punishment options, suggesting the "death results" 

factor relates to punishment, not to guilt or innocence.7 We 

do not think, however, that the placement of the "death 

results" factor after the phrase "shall be punished" should be 

accorded controlling weight. The structure of section 1472(n) 

is complex: it states the elements of " 'an offense,' as defined 

in the [Hague Convention]" in section 1472(n)(2), but then 

adds further substantive elements to this offense in section 

1472(n)(1), including the requirement that the offense be 

committed "aboard an aircraft in flight outside the special 

aircraft jurisdiction of the United States" and that the defendant be "afterward found in the United States." Given this 

convoluted structure, it should not be that surprising to find 

still another additional element, defining an additional substantive offense, in section 1472(n)(1)(B), after the statute 

appears to have changed the subject to "punishment." 8

__________

7 The relevant section of the statute provides that a defendant 

"shall be punished (A) by imprisonment for not less than 20 years; 

or (B) if the death of another person results from the commission or 

attempted commission of the offense, by death or imprisonment for 

life." 49 U.S.C. app. § 1472(n)(1).

8

Indeed, in the legislative history of section 1472(n)(1), the House 

Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce described the 

function of section 1472(n)(1) as a whole as to "provide[ ] penalties," 

but then immediately qualified this statement:

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The United States also points to the structural relationship 

of section 1472(n) to another statutory provision, section 

1473(c)(2). Under that provision, a death-penalty sentencing 

hearing must be held when a defendant "is found guilty of or 

pleads guilty to an offense under section 1472(i) or 1472(n) of 

this title for which one of the sentences provided is death." 

49 U.S.C. app. § 1473(c)(2). The death-penalty sentencing 

hearing is to occur "before the jury which determined the 

defendant's guilt." § 1473(c)(2)(A). The hearing may also 

occur before "a jury impaneled for the purpose of the hearing," but only if the defendant had pleaded guilty, was 

convicted in a trial without a jury, or if "good cause" existed 

to discharge the previous jury. § 1473(c)(2)(B). Finally, the 

hearing may be "before the court alone," but only "upon the 

motion of the defendant and with the approval of the court 

and the Government." § 1473(c)(2)(C).

Construing the "death results" provision as a penalty enhancement would be markedly at odds with the structure and 

purposes of section 1473(c). Section 1473(c) is triggered 

whenever a defendant "is found guilty of or pleads guilty to 

__________

Paragraph (1) of the new subsection (n) provides penalties for 

any person who commits an "offense" (as defined in the Hague 

Convention) aboard an aircraft in flight outside the special 

aircraft jurisdiction of the United States, and is afterward 

found in the United States. This paragraph provides for a 

penalty of imprisonment for not less than 20 years, or, if the 

death of another person results from the commission or attempted commission of an "offense," the penalty may be death 

or imprisonment for life. The imposition of the death penalty 

is subject to the procedural requirements set forth in section 

105 of the reported bill, discussed in detail below.

H.R. REP. NO. 93-885, at 12 (1974). Congress thus seems to have 

seen all of section 1472(n)(1) to relate to penalties, but nonetheless 

included in that subsection elements of the substantive offense of 

air piracy. We read the "death results" provision to be just one 

more such element. Cf. Michael, 10 F.3d at 841-42 (noting that 

congressional references to increased penalties need not always 

signal penalty enhancements, but may at times indicate the creation 

of a distinct offense).

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an offense under sections 1472(i) or 1472(n) of this title for 

which one of the sentences provided is death." If section 

1472(n) does not define two distinct crimes, then a defendant 

cannot be "found guilty of or plead[ ] guilty to an offense ... 

for which one of the sentences provided is death"; a defendant can only be found guilty of or plead guilty to a generalized offense under section 1472(n). Before section 1473(c) 

could apply, there would need to first be a guilty plea or 

guilty verdict; then an intermediate proceeding, presumably 

tried to the court (the usual rule at sentencing proceedings) 

as to whether "death resulted"; and then, if necessary, the 

death-penalty sentencing hearing provided for in section 

1473(c). This structure is inconsistent with the language of 

section 1473(c), which contemplates a verdict that leads directly into a death-penalty sentencing hearing. It also ignores the strong policy expressed in section 1473(c) of trying 

all matters related to the imposition of the death sentence to 

a jury, where possible. If Congress intended to establish an 

ornate, three-stage procedure for the imposition of the death 

sentence in air piracy caseswith the middle stage, and only 

that stage, tried to the courtit would presumably have said 

so explicitly, either in the statute or in its legislative history. 

Neither contains any indication that this is what Congress 

intended.

This is an appropriate case then in which to apply Michael's rule that "we are reluctant to infer ... classification 

[as a penalty enhancement] in the absence of a reasonably 

clear statement from Congress, at least for a fact embedded 

in the statutory section defining the crime and closely related 

to the circumstances of the crime." Michael, 10 F.3d at 842. 

The fact that a death resulted from a hijacking is "closely 

related" to the circumstances of the hijacking; indeed, this 

fact will ordinarily be admissible at trial, to prove that the 

defendant used force or intimidation in committing the crime. 

Cf. United States v. Rivera-Gomez, 67 F.3d 993, 996 (1st Cir. 

1995). As to the statute's structure, we have found that 

Congress did not clearly demarcate factors related to guilt 

from those related to punishment in drafting section 1472(n), 

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and that the need to harmonize section 1472(n) with section 

1473(c) militates against the penalty-enhancement reading.

We recognize that our reading of the "death results" provision of section 1472(n) is at odds with the prevailing judicial 

interpretation of a number of other statutes that incorporate 

"death results" provisions. Under federal statutes criminalizing arson, see United States v. Ryan, 9 F.3d 660, 667-69 (8th 

Cir. 1993), vacated in part on other grounds, 41 F.3d 361 

(1994) (interpreting 18 U.S.C. § 844(i)), carjacking, see 

Rivera-Gomez, 67 F.3d at 996 (1st Cir. 1995) (interpreting 18 

U.S.C. § 2119); United States v. Williams, 51 F.3d 1004, 

1009 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 116 S. Ct. 258 (1995) (same), and 

certain civil rights violations, see Catala Fonfrias v. United 

States, 951 F.2d 423, 424-25 (1st Cir. 1991) (interpreting 18 

U.S.C. §§ 241, 242), courts have read similarly-worded "death 

results" provisions as imposing penalty enhancements, not as 

creating separate offenses. We do not think that these cases 

conflict with our disposition here. Those cases generally 

turned on factors, such as legislative history, specific to the 

statutes in question. See, e.g., Ryan, 9 F.3d at 668; Catala 

Fonfrias, 951 F.2d at 427. They also relied on structural 

features of the statutes in question, like the fact that they 

only "single[d] out a subset of [criminals] for more severe 

punishment." Ryan, 9 F.3d at 667. We found in Jackson, 

however, that structural cues of this kind may not be dispositive in the face of other contextual evidence. See Jackson,

824 F.2d at 23-24. Here, the unusual relationship of sections 

1472(n) and 1473(c)(2) leads us to conclude that the "death 

results" provision must be classified as an element of a 

substantive offense. We therefore affirm the district court's 

ruling that Rezaq was not entitled to a bifurcated proceeding.

3. The Proffered Stipulation

Rezaq offered to stipulate that Mendelson and Rogenkamp 

had died, and claims that the district court should have 

compelled the United States to accept his offer. In Old Chief 

v. United States, 117 S. Ct. 644 (1997), the Supreme Court 

reaffirmed the general rule that "the prosecution is entitled to 

prove its case free from any defendant's option to stipulate 

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the evidence away." Id. at 654. Old Chief established an 

exception to this rule for crimes like possession of a firearm 

by a convicted felon, in which the evidentiary issue is one of 

"status," id. at 655, but that exception does not apply to this 

case, and Rezaq has not established that any other exception 

should apply. Thus, the United States was free to decline to 

stipulate.

4. Rogenkamp's Autopsy

The United States presented extensive evidence at trial 

relating to Rogenkamp's autopsy. This included the testimony of a pathologist, who described the autopsy in considerable 

clinical detail, and testified that Rezaq's bullet had caused 

Rogenkamp's death; the pathologist also discussed the cause 

of Mendelson's death on the basis of autopsy records that he 

had reviewed. The United States also introduced an autopsy 

report, and a number of enlarged photographs from the 

autopsy, which were placed on an easel near the jury box; 

the United States displayed the photographs again during 

closing arguments.

Rezaq had filed a motion in limine seeking to exclude this 

evidence as overly prejudicial. Federal Rule of Evidence 403 

permits the district court to exclude evidence "if its probative 

value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair 

prejudice." FED. R. EVID. 403. The district court accordingly weighed the probative value of this evidence against the 

danger of unfair prejudice. As to probative value, the district 

court found the evidence relevant to both the "force or 

intimidation" element of the statute and the "death results" 

element. The district court found that the autopsy reports 

were highly probative as to the fact of Rogenkamp's death, as 

to its cause, and as to "the fact that the killings were 

intentional." It found that the autopsy photographs were 

likewise "highly probative" as to the first two of these factors, 

the fact and cause of death.

In weighing the prejudicial effect of this evidence, the 

district court found that the autopsy reports had no prejudicial effect, as they were "straightforward and factual," and 

nothing in them was likely to inflame the jury. It observed 

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that some of the autopsy photographs similarly presented no 

danger of prejudice; others it found were "more graphic in 

nature," but it concluded that, "[i]n light of the highly probative value of these particular photographs," the danger of 

unfair prejudice did not substantially outweigh the evidence's 

probative value.9 Rezaq asserts that the district court erred 

in admitting this evidence.

"We review Rule 403 determinations most deferentially and 

will reverse only for 'grave abuse' of the trial court's discretion." United States v. Johnson, 46 F.3d 1166, 1171 (D.C. 

Cir. 1995) (quoting United States v. Manner, 887 F.2d 317, 

322 (D.C. Cir. 1989)). Here, although we might not have 

admitted at least one of the most grisly photographs into 

evidence, we cannot say that the district court's decision to do 

so amounted to "grave abuse."

We begin with the evidence's probative value. The fact 

that death resulted from the hijacking was an element of the 

offense with which Rezaq was charged. The autopsy report, 

the testimony of the pathologist, and the photographs all 

demonstrated that it was Rezaq's bullets that killed Rogenkamp and Mendelson. The fact that Rezaq's victims died is 

also relevant to the "force and intimidation" element of the 

statute. See Rivera-Gomez, 67 F.3d at 996 (1st Cir.1995) ("It 

is difficult to conceive of a situation in which the death of a 

victim would not be relevant to the use of force and violence 

during the commission of an attempted carjacking."). The 

autopsy evidence corroborated the government's account of 

the way in which Rezaq used systematic executions to maintain control of passengers and airport personnel.

Based on this analysis, we can dismiss the autopsy report 

and the pathologist's testimony from consideration immediately. Both had some small prejudicial effect, as they presented unsettling details of the way in which Rezaq's victims 

__________

9

In two of the autopsy photographs, Rogenkamp was unclothed. 

The United States offered to edit the photographs, and the district 

court permitted them to be introduced on this condition. They 

appear never to have been introduced, however.

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died; but this effect does not "substantially outweigh" the 

evidence's probative value. All but one of the autopsy photographs that were introduced into evidence fell into the same 

category. These photographs were fairly antiseptic; they 

included three photographs of the entry wound in Rogenkamp's head, an x-ray image of her skull with the bullet 

embedded in it, and a photograph of the bullet itself. The 

harder case is a close-up photograph showing the removal of 

the bullet from Rogenkamp's skull. This photograph was 

notably graphic: in it, a large triangular portion of the skin 

on Rogenkamp's skull has been removed, revealing bone, 

tissue, and a large quantity of blood (as well as the bullet).

"Blood will have blood," WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, MACBETH, 

Act 3, sc. 4; accordingly, photographs of gore may inappropriately dispose a jury to exact retribution. A number of 

courts have recognized this principle. For instance, in Ferrier v. Duckworth, 902 F.2d 545, 548 (7th Cir. 1990), the court 

found it improper to admit photographs, "in color and enlarged to twelve square feet," of the victim's blood on the 

floor of a bar, as the blood "was not relevant to any issue in 

the case," and "[t]he only conceivable reason for placing [the 

photographs] in evidence was to inflame the jury" against the 

defendant. Id. at 548. See also Gomez v. Ahitow, 29 F.3d 

1128, 1139 (7th Cir. 1994) (similar). The fact that the photograph in this case was taken in a clinical setting somewhat 

reduced its prejudicial effect, but the photograph nevertheless created some risk of prejudice. Nor was its probative 

value great. Autopsy photographs can have immense probative value, if for example they confirm the prosecution's 

theory about the manner in which the crime was committed. 

See United States v. Cruz-Kuilan, 75 F.3d 59, 61 (1st Cir. 

1996) (autopsy photographs confirmed witness's account of 

the crime, establishing that bullets fired by defendant had 

indeed passed through the body of the victim and injured the 

witness). Here, however, the photograph only provided further corroboration that Rogenkamp was shot in the head; 

because the bullet was visible in the other photographs, this 

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point did not especially need elucidation.10

Although some might have doubts about the prudence of 

admitting this photograph into evidence, we cannot say that 

the district court's decision to do so amounted to "grave 

abuse." The photograph did have some probative value, and 

its prejudicial effect, although significant, was not extreme. 

"The trial judge's exercise of discretion in balancing the 

prejudicial effect and probative value of photographic evidence of this type is rarely disturbed." United States v. 

Goseyun, 789 F.2d 1386, 1387 (9th Cir. 1986).

5. The Storming of the Plane

Rezaq also sought to bar the United States from introducing into evidence the fact that 57 passengers died in the 

Egyptian commandos' ill-fated storming of the plane. The 

district court denied his motion, finding that the United 

States could reasonably contend that Rezaq's claimed posttraumatic stress disorder only developed after the hijacking, 

and that the storming of the plane could have contributed to 

the symptoms his experts had identified. At trial, the United 

States brought up the storming of the plane in precisely this 

context, while cross-examining Rezaq's experts on posttraumatic stress disorder.

The fact that 57 passengers died in the storming of the 

plane might well have been unfairly prejudicial. Even though 

these deaths were not at issue in the case, the jury could have 

concluded that someone should be punished for them; the 

relevant Egyptian officials were not before the court, so that 

Rezaq would have borne the brunt of the jury's ire. But the 

facts surrounding the storming of the plane also had significant probative value, as it could be argued that the traumatic 

effects of this incident were comparable to the effects of many 

__________

10 The United States also maintains that it was appropriate to use 

the autopsy evidence to attack Rezaq's defense of obedience to 

orders, as obedience to orders is not a defense if the orders are 

plainly unlawful. But it would seem that the more direct way to 

show that Rezaq's orders were plainly unlawful ex ante is to show 

what those orders were, not how Rezaq carried them out.

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of the incidents Rezaq himself cited as causes of his asserted 

PTSD. We therefore find that the district court's decision to 

admit the evidence was an appropriate application of Rule 

403.11

E. Mid-Trial Publicity

The night after the government's closing argument, on 

Wednesday, July 17, 1996, TWA Flight 800 crashed off the 

coast of Long Island, on its route from New York to Paris. 

The disaster was covered extensively in various media; indeed, one survey indicated that it was the most heavily 

covered news event of 1996. News coverage was filled with 

speculation as to the cause of the crash, and one frequentlycited theory was that terrorists (perhaps from the Middle 

East) were responsible. News coverage also observed that 

the plane had previously flown out of Athens, which one 

article (in the Washington Post) said was "known as a base 

for terrorists." Don Phillips, 747 Explodes with 229 Aboard,

WASHINGTON POST, July 18, 1996, at A1, A19. Athens, of 

course, was where Rezaq and his confederates boarded the 

Air Egypt flight.

The jury had not been sequestered or instructed to avoid 

news coverage, and was thus presumably exposed to the 

initial news of the crash. On the morning after the crash, at 

the request of Rezaq's counsel, the district court told the jury 

that the crash was unrelated to the case and to put the event 

out of their minds. Rezaq's counsel did not, however, ask 

that the jury be told to avoid further news coverage, and they 

were not given any such instruction. Rezaq's counsel gave 

his closing argument that same day, and the jury began to 

deliberate that afternoon. On the following day, Friday, July 

19, after further news coverage speculating about terrorism, 

__________

11 The district court also concluded that the storming of the plane 

was relevant to the timing of the end of the hijacking, which is 

defined by section 1472(n) as the time that the aircraft is restored 

to the control of "competent authorities." It was not contested that 

Rezaq was in control of the aircraft for an extended period of time; 

the precise timing of the end of the hijacking was not relevant to 

any issue in the case.

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Rezaq moved for a mistrial; the motion was denied. That 

afternoon, the jury returned a guilty verdict. Rezaq now 

argues that the district court erred in declining to grant his 

motion for a mistrial, and, in the alternative, that the district 

court should have conducted individual voir dire of the jurors, 

and that its failure to do so requires that he receive a new 

trial.

Given that it is quite unlikely that publicity about an 

unrelated air crash could impair a jury's ability to remain 

impartial, we find that the district court's response to the 

publicity was appropriate in all respects. This court has 

adopted a three-part approach for district courts to apply in 

addressing potentially prejudicial media influence on the jury. 

The court is to (1) decide whether the material is prejudicial, 

(2) decide whether jurors were exposed to it, and (3) examine 

jurors to see if they can remain impartial. See United States 

v. Williams-Davis, 90 F.3d 490, 501 (D.C. Cir. 1996), cert. 

denied, 117 S. Ct. 986 (1997). As to the second factor, the 

jurors hardly could have avoided exposure. As to the first, 

we find that there was at most a modest risk of prejudice. In 

most cases involving prejudicial publicity during trial, the 

publicity relates directly to the issues in the trial itself; here, 

the publicity was about an unrelated event that might have 

indirectly influenced the jury's perceptions of the case before 

it. Given the magnitude of the crash, the saturation news 

coverage, and the speculation that terrorists were to blame, it 

is theoretically possible that the sensibilities of some jurors 

might have been affected, heightening their reluctance to 

consider on their merits Rezaq's defenses of insanity and 

obedience to orders.12

__________

12 The emotionally compelling nature of the crash distinguishes 

this case from United States v. Holton, 116 F.3d 1536, 1548 (D.C. 

Cir. 1997), cert. denied, 66 U.S.L.W. 3457 (1998), in which we found 

it "extremely unlikely" that a report on ABC's "Nightline" on 

sentencing of crack cocaine offenders could have tainted the jury. 

Holton was about a fairly obscure broadcast on an issue of public 

policy; here, the publicity was about what the Washington Post

repeatedly called a "tragedy." See Rene Sanchez and Serge F. 

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Turning to the third element of Williams-Davis, Rezaq 

complains that the district court, rather than conducting an 

individual voir dire, only questioned the jury as a whole as to 

whether it could remain impartial. Although "the method of 

conducting the voir dire is left to the sound discretion of the 

district court," Waldorf v. Shuta, 3 F.3d 705, 710 (3d Cir. 

1993), the collective voir dire is not ordinarily the instrument 

of choice for discerning the impartiality of jurors. See Coppedge v. United States, 272 F.2d 504, 508 (D.C. Cir. 1959) ("It 

is too much to expect of human nature that a juror would 

volunteer, in open court, before his fellow jurors, that he 

would be influenced in his verdict by a newspaper story of the 

trial."). Here, however, the district court found, and Rezaq's 

counsel agreed, that it was important to avoid linking the 

crash with the trial in the jurors' minds, and that a single 

general question, directed to the jury as a whole, was the 

most appropriate way to accomplish this goal. Given the 

close involvement of his counsel in the process of formulating 

the court's response to the crash, Rezaq cannot object now to 

the approach the district court adopted. Indeed, Rezaq's 

counsel has effectively conceded on this appeal that he made 

a strategic decision not to seek an individual voir dire, saying 

that "[s]uch a suggestion from counsel would have undercut 

the defense position that nothing could be done to alleviate 

the prejudice short of a mistrial."

Nor did the district court err in declining to declare a 

mistrial. The risk of prejudice from the crash-related publicity, although real, was somewhat reduced by the fact that the 

district court instructed the jurors to put the publicity out of 

their minds. On balance, the risk falls short of that degree of 

significance which has in other cases been found to warrant a 

new trial. See, e.g., Waldorf v. Shuta, 3 F.3d 705, 711 (3d Cir. 

1993) (jurors brought relevant news article into the jury room 

and discussed it there); United States v. Littlefield, 752 F.2d 

1429, 1432 (9th Cir. 1985) (similar); United States v. Lord,

__________

Kovaleski, TWA Travelers' Tragedy is Felt Across the Nation,

WASHINGTON POST, July 19, 1996, at A1.

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565 F.2d 831, 838 (2d Cir. 1977) (news coverage revealing 

prejudicial information about the defendant).

F. Restitution

The district court ordered that Rezaq pay a total of 

$254,000 in restitution to seven victims. Rezaq argues that 

the district court erred in the manner in which it calculated 

the amount of his restitution, both in failing to consider his 

ability to pay, and in failing to demand more detailed proof of 

the amount of the victims' losses.

1. Ability to Pay

The provision under which the district court ordered restitution states:

The court, in determining whether to order restitution 

under section 3579 of this title and the amount of such 

restitution, shall consider the amount of the loss sustained by any victim as a result of the offense, the 

financial resources of the defendant, the financial needs 

and earning ability of the defendant and the defendant's 

dependents, and such other factors as the court deems 

appropriate.

18 U.S.C. § 3664(a). Rezaq claims that the district court 

failed to consider his "financial resources" and his "earning 

ability" in setting the amount of his restitution, and that this 

was error.13

In United States v. Bapack, 129 F.3d 1320 (D.C. Cir. 1997), 

we set forth our interpretation of section 3364's requirement 

that the district court "shall consider" these factors. We 

found that it was appropriate to treat orders of restitution as 

we do fines; as to fines, "where the record demonstrates that 

the judge considered [a] factor before imposing the fine, the 

appellate court will not reverse the fine merely because no 

__________

13 Congress recently amended section 3364 in a way that appears 

to eliminate the requirement that the district court take these 

factors into account; the Ex Post Facto Clause prohibits the 

application of this amendment to Rezaq, however. See United 

States v. Bapack, 129 F.3d 1320, 1327 n.13 (D.C. Cir. 1997).

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express finding was made but will review the finding of ability 

to pay necessarily implied by such consideration." See Bapack, 129 F.3d at 1328 (quoting United States v. Mastropierro, 931 F.3d 905, 906 (D.C. Cir. 1991)).

The record demonstrates that the district court considered 

Rezaq's ability to pay in setting the amount of its restitution 

order. As to Rezaq's present ability to pay, the district court 

ordered at sentencing that "[t]he $850 in the registry of the 

court will be paid to the victims," demonstrating that it knew 

the (limited) extent of Rezaq's assets. As to Rezaq's future 

earning ability, the district court could hardly have been 

ignorant of the fact that Rezaq's anticipated sentence would 

greatly restrict his earnings; imprisonment is rarely lucrative. In a brief filed with the district court, the United States 

argued that Rezaq might seek to write books or articles on 

his crimes, and thus might later have the resources to pay a 

large order of restitution. Rezaq's brief replied that this was 

quite unlikely to occur. Given the district court's demonstrated familiarity with Rezaq's present ability to pay, an issue 

addressed in the same set of briefs, it is fair to conclude that 

the district court made its ruling in light of those briefs, and 

hence considered the information they presented as to Rezaq's future earning ability. Cf. United States v. Cannizzaro,

871 F.2d 809, 811-12 (9th Cir. 1989). We therefore find that 

there is adequate evidence that the district court considered 

this factor.14

2. Adequacy of Documentation

The Probation Office provided the district court with copies 

of Victim Impact Statements from seven victims of the hijacking. The statements were very detailed, consuming a total of 

forty-two pages; the impacts they listed included extensive 

injuries and associated medical expenses, psychological 

__________

14 Nor does the fact that Rezaq's future earnings are speculative 

necessarily require that the district court award a minimal amount 

of restitution. See United States v. Fountain, 768 F.2d 790, 802-

03 (7th Cir. 1985) (finding that the possibility that the defendant 

would sell his story sufficed to indicate that he might someday be 

able to satisfy a high amount of restitution).

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harms, disruptions to the victims' lives, and loss of income 

and property. The record also included numerous signed 

statements from physicians, psychiatrists, and employers corroborating the victims' accounts of their losses; one victim 

also appended translations of newspaper articles and of an 

appellate brief relating to her unsuccessful efforts to obtain 

compensation in the Egyptian courts. The district court's 

order of restitution included all of the financial impacts listed 

in the victims' statements, including medical expenses, lost 

wages, and lost property.

"Any amount to be paid in restitution must be obtained by 

accurate computation and cannot exceed the amount of loss 

actually caused." United States v. Forzese, 756 F.2d 217, 222 

(1st Cir. 1985) (emphasis omitted). This rule protects both 

the rights of the defendant and those of the victims, who will 

often share the defendant's limited assets pro rata and who 

will therefore be harmed if another victim receives an improperly high award. The district court had sufficient evidence on which to base its award of restitution in this case. 

The documentation before the court was extensive, especially 

when considered in light of the fact that the crime was 

committed over ten years earlier. Awards of restitution are 

reviewed for abuse of discretion, United States v. Henoud, 81 

F.3d 484, 487 (4th Cir. 1996); we are satisfied that no such 

abuse occurred here.

G. Classified Materials

When classified materials may be relevant to criminal 

proceedings, the Classified Information Procedures Act 

("CIPA"), 18 U.S.C. app. III (1994), provides procedures 

designed to protect the rights of the defendant while minimizing the associated harm to national security. In the course of 

preparing for trial, the United States identified a number of 

arguably discoverable classified materials, and obtained permission from the district court to file an ex parte, in camera

motion for a protective order. After reviewing this motion 

and the accompanying documents, the district court ordered 

the United States to prepare an index listing the contents of 

each document, whether it believed the document to be 

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subject to discovery, and why. This document, too, was 

submitted ex parte and in camera; the district court subjected this document to detailed review, and prepared a list of the 

materials that it considered discoverable.

Under CIPA, the court may allow the United States to 

disclose "a statement admitting relevant facts that the classified information would tend to prove," in lieu of disclosing the 

information itself. 18 U.S.C. app. III § 4 (1994). The United 

States sought, and obtained, permission to substitute admissions for all of the documents that the district court had 

identified as discoverable. The district court reviewed the 

United States's proposed substitutions, and concluded that 

they fairly stated the relevant elements of the classified 

documents. The substitutions were then disclosed to Rezaq's 

attorney.

Rezaq's request on appeal is very limited. He does not ask 

us to review the district court's determination as to which 

documents were discoverable in the first instance. Instead, 

he asks only that we review the documents that the district 

court found to be discoverable, and decide whether the summaries that the court furnished to him were as helpful to his 

defense as the original documents would have been. He is 

particularly concerned that the summaries may have omitted 

important information, or that the process of transforming 

the documents into desiccated statements of material fact 

might have hampered the "evidentiary richness and narrative 

integrity" of the defense he was able to present. Old Chief,

117 S. Ct. at 651.

We found in Yunis that a defendant seeking classified 

information is not entitled to receive it "on a mere showing of 

theoretical relevance," but "is entitled only to information 

that is at least 'helpful to the defense of the accused.' " 867 

F.2d at 623 (quoting Roviaro v. United States, 353 U.S. 53, 

60-61 (1957)). This principle applies to sub-elements of individual documents; if some portion or aspect of a document is 

classified, a defendant is entitled to receive it only if it may be 

helpful to his defense. A court applying this rule should, of 

course, err on the side of protecting the interests of the 

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defendant. In some cases, a court might legitimately conclude that it is necessary to place a fact in context in order to 

ensure that the jury is able to give it its full weight. For 

instance, it might be appropriate in some circumstances to 

attribute a statement to its source, or to phrase it as a 

quotation. As the Court said in Old Chief, "[a] syllogism is 

not a story, and a naked proposition in a courtroom may be 

no match for the robust evidence that would be used to prove 

it." 117 S. Ct. at 654.15

The district court's substitution decisions turned on the 

relevance of the facts contained in the discoverable documents, and are therefore reviewed, like other relevance decisions under CIPA, for abuse of discretion. See United States 

v. Yunis, 867 F.2d 617, 625 (D.C. Cir. 1989). We are obliged 

to consider the district court's substitution decisions very 

carefully, as Rezaq's counsel is unable to consult the original 

documents, and so cannot present arguments on his client's 

behalf. We have accordingly conducted a detailed in camera

comparison of the originals of the discoverable documents 

with the summaries approved by the district court. We find 

that the district court did a commendable job of discharging 

its obligations under CIPA, and in particular that its orders 

protected Rezaq's rights very effectively despite the fact that 

Rezaq's attorney was unable to participate in the CIPA 

proceedings. No information was omitted from the substitutions that might have been helpful to Rezaq's defense, and 

the discoverable documents had no unclassified features that 

might have been disclosed to Rezaq.

__________

15 Of course, this contextual information may be precisely the sort 

of information that the government most wishes to protect; frequently, "the government's security interest ... lies not so much in 

the contents of [a] conversation[ ], as in the time, place and nature 

of the government's ability to intercept the conversation[ ] at all." 

Yunis, 867 F.2d at 623.

After the court has identified the material that is helpful to the 

defendant, there may be a third step to the court's analysis, in 

which it balances the defendant's interest in disclosure against the 

government's interest in secrecy. We have reserved the question of 

whether such balancing is proper. See id. at 625.

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III. CONCLUSION

We therefore conclude that all of Rezaq's arguments on 

this appeal are without merit. We reject his sequentialprosecution argument, finding that neither the Hague Convention nor section 1472(n) contains any bar on sequential 

prosecution more restrictive than that in the Double Jeopardy 

Clause. As to his claim that the United States manufactured 

jurisdiction over him, we conclude that section 1472(n)'s "afterward found in the United States" language did not preclude jurisdiction even though the United States brought 

Rezaq into its territory against his will for trial. Nor is 

section 1472(n)'s "death results" provision subject to any 

special jurisdictional requirements of its own.

Turning to Rezaq's claims that prejudicial evidence was 

introduced at his trial, we find that Rezaq was not entitled to 

have references to his victims' deaths stricken from the 

indictment, to have the proceedings bifurcated, or to have the 

United States stipulate to the deaths, and that the district 

court did not overstep its discretion in permitting the United 

States to introduce evidence relating to the autopsies of his 

victims at trial. The fact that 57 passengers died during the 

storming of the plane was also properly admitted, as it 

provided a possible alternate cause of Rezaq's post-traumatic 

stress disorder. We also conclude that the publicity surrounding the crash of TWA Flight 800 was not so prejudicial 

as to entitle Rezaq to a retrial, and that Rezaq waived his 

right to have the jury polled individually. We also reject 

Rezaq's arguments that the district court failed to consider 

his ability to pay an award of restitution, that there was 

inadequate support for the district court's restitution order, 

and that the district court erred in substituting bare statements of fact for discoverable classified documents.

So ordered.

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