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524US2

Unit: $U97

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Cite as: 524 U. S. 666 (1998)

699

Opinion of the Court

erer and prosecutor made one nation the agent of the other,
rendering fear of foreign prosecution tantamount to fear of
a criminal case brought by the Government itself.

Whether such an argument should be sustained may be
left at the least for another day, since its premises do not ﬁt
this case.
It is true that Balsys has shown that the United
States has assumed an interest in foreign prosecution, as
demonstrated by OSI’s mandate 18 and American treaty
agreements 19 requiring the Government to give to Lithuania
and Israel any evidence provided by Balsys. But this inter-
est does not rise to the level of cooperative prosecution.
There is no system of complementary substantive offenses

18 According to Order No. 851–79, reprinted in App. 15–17, the OSI shall
“[m]aintain liaison with foreign prosecution, investigation and intelligence
ofﬁces; [u]se appropriate Government agency resources and personnel for
investigations, guidance, information, and analysis; and [d]irect and coordi-
nate the investigation, prosecution, and any other legal actions instituted
in these cases with the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Fed-
eral Bureau of Investigation, the United States Attorneys Ofﬁces, and
other relevant Federal agencies.”

19 The United States and Lithuania have entered into an agreement that
provides that the two governments “agree to cooperate in prosecution of
persons who are alleged to have committed war crimes . . . agree to pro-
vide mutual legal assistance concerning the prosecution of persons sus-
pected of having committed war crimes . . . will assist each other in the
location of witnesses believed to possess relevant information about crimi-
nal actions .
. during World War II, and agree to intermediate and
endeavor to make these witnesses available for the purpose of giving
testimony in accordance with the laws of the Republic of Lithuania to
authorized representatives of the United States Department of Justice.”
Memorandum of Understanding Between the United States Department
of Justice and the Ofﬁce of the Procurator General of the Republic of Lith-
uania Concerning Cooperation in the Pursuit of War Criminals, Aug. 3,
1992, reprinted in App. in No. 96–6144 (CA2), pp. 396–397.

.

The District Court found that though it had not been made aware of a
treaty between the United States and Israel requiring disclosure of infor-
mation related to war crimes, OSI had shared such information in the past
and that it would be consistent with OSI’s mandate from the Attorney
General for OSI to do so again.

918 F. Supp. 588, 596 (EDNY 1996).