Case Name: Wilmer Yarleque ORDINOLA, Petitioner-Appellee, v. John HACKMAN, Acting United States Marshal for the Eastern District of Virginia, Respondent-Appellant
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 2007-02-22
Citations: 478 F.3d 588
Docket Number: No. 06-6126
Parties: Wilmer Yarleque ORDINOLA, Petitioner-Appellee, v. John HACKMAN, Acting United States Marshal for the Eastern District of Virginia, Respondent-Appellant.
Judges: Before WILLIAMS and TRAXLER, Circuit Judges, and THOMAS E. JOHNSTON, United States District Judge for the Southern District of West Virginia, sitting by designation.
Reporter: Federal Reporter 3d Series
Volume: 478
Pages: 588–616

Head Matter:
Wilmer Yarleque ORDINOLA, Petitioner-Appellee, v. John HACKMAN, Acting United States Marshal for the Eastern District of Virginia, Respondent-Appellant.
No. 06-6126.
United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.
Argued Sept. 18, 2006.
Decided Feb. 22, 2007.
ARGUED: Michael Alan Rotker, United States Department of Justice, Criminal Division, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Meghan Suzanne Skelton, Office of the Federal Public Defender, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Jason E. Carter, United States Department of Justice, Criminal Division, Office of International Affairs, Washington, D.C.; Paul J. McNulty, United States Attorney, Jeanine Linehan, Assistant United States Attorney, Office of the United States Attorney, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellant. Michael S. Nachmanoff, Acting Federal Public Defender, Alexandria, Virginia, for Ap-pellee.
Before WILLIAMS and TRAXLER, Circuit Judges, and THOMAS E. JOHNSTON, United States District Judge for the Southern District of West Virginia, sitting by designation.

Opinion:
Vacated and remanded by published opinion. Judge WILLIAMS wrote the opinion, in which Judge JOHNSTON concurred. Judge TRAXLER wrote a separate concurring opinion.
OPINION
WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge.
Pursuant to the bilateral Extradition Treaty between the United States and Peru, see Extradition Treaty, U.S.-Peru, July 26, 2001, S. Treaty Doc. No 107-6 ("Extradition Treaty"), the United States Government seeks to extradite Wilmer Yarleque Ordinola, a Peruvian national, to Peru so that he can stand trial for the alleged crimes of aggravated homicide, aggravated kidnapping, forced disappearance of persons, inflicting major intentional injuries, and delinquent association. Before a magistrate judge, Ordinola claimed, inter alia, that he was not extraditable because his alleged crimes fit within the Treaty's exception for political offenses. The magistrate judge, acting as the finder of fact, disagreed, finding that Ordinola's offenses could not be defined as political for purposes of the Treaty. Ordinola filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, and the district court granted the writ, determining that the political offense exception barred extradition in this case. The Government appealed. For the reasons identified below, we conclude that the magistrate judge did not err in finding Ordinola extraditable. We therefore vacate the district court's grant of the writ and remand for reentry of a Certification of Extradita-bility.
I.
A.
In the late 1960s, Abimael Guzman, a Peruvian philosophy professor and leader of a faction of Peru's Communist Party, founded the radical left-wing guerrilla movement known as Sendero Luminoso, or "the Shining Path." The Shining Path has since been described as a "highly organized guerrilla organization with a Maoist communist ideology dedicated to the violent overthrow of Peru's democratic government and social structure." Sotelo-Aquije v. Slattery, 17 F.3d 33, 35 (2d Cir.1994). By the mid-1980s, the Shining Path had grown from a relatively small regional movement into a much larger and more dispersed one that engaged in numerous acts of violence against Peruvian government officials, peasants, journalists, professors, teachers, and others. At its height, the Shining Path was characterized as "[sjophisticated, well-organized," and "probably the most brutal, vindictive, and elusive terrorist insurgency in the Western Hemisphere." (J.A. at 138 (The Threat of the Shining Path to Democracy in Peru: Hearing Before the Subcomm. on Western Hemisphere Affairs of the H. Comm. on Foreign Affairs, 102d Cong. 47 (1992) (statement of Gabriela Taranzona-Sevillano, Visiting Prof. of Int'l Studies, Davidson Coll.)).)
In 1990, newly elected Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori enlisted Vladimiro Lenin Montesinos, former Advisor to the Peruvian National Intelligence Service, as a military advisor. Together, Fujimori and Montesinos provided the military with vast power and resources to fight the Shining Path, responding to the group's insurgency with tactics that nearly matched the Shining Path's in brutality. The result was Fujimori's creation of a military establishment that was described as "institutionally corrupt," clouded by "the worst human rights record in the hemisphere," and characterized by "a persistent record of indiscriminate action against rural populations" stemming from a "belief that popular terror, in and of itself, is a recipe for success [against the Shining Path]." (J.A. at 110, 112 (The Threat of the Shining Path to Democracy in Peru: Hearing Before the Subcomm. on Western Hemisphere Affairs of the H. Comm, on Foreign Affairs, 102d Cong. 19, 21 (1992) (statement of Gordon H. McCormick, senior social scientist, RAND Corp.)).)
During 1991, in connection with this strategy, Fujimori created a special operations paramilitary squad known as the Grupo Colina, or "Colina Group," and commissioned the group to combat the Shining Path. Ordinola, a veteran of the Peruvian army with experience in military intelligence, was assigned to the group and later became "group chief," meaning that he was coordinator for one of the Colina Group's three subgroups.
B.
Peru's extradition request alleges that Ordinola, while serving in the Colina Group, kidnapped and murdered noncombatant civilians on four separate occasions in 1991 and 1992. The allegations related to these four incidents are recounted below.
1. The Barrios Altos Case.
On the evening of November 3, 1991, two trucks containing Colina Group agents, including Ordinola, traveled to the Barrios Altos neighborhood in Lima, Peru, where a pollada — a social function typically held for fund-raising purposes — was taking place in the yard of an apartment complex. Dressed in ski masks and carrying machine guns with silencers, Ordinola and around ten other agents left the trucks, entered the apartment complex yard, and began shooting at the people attending the pollada. The agents killed fifteen people, including an eight-year-old boy, and seriously injured four others.
Julio Chiqui Aguirre, a Colina Group agent who participated in the attack, identified Ordinola as an active participant in the shootings and as the killer of the eight-year-old boy. In connection with the massacre, Peru has charged Ordinola with Aggravated Homicide, Inflicting Major Intentional Injuries, and Delinquent Association, in violation of Articles 108, 121, and 317 of the Peruvian Criminal Code.
2.La Cantuta Case.
On July 17, 1992, Ordinola and other Colina Group agents traveled to La Cantata University. The agents, who were armed, wearing ski masks, and carrying shovels and lime, entered the student dormitories and forced approximately fifteen students outside. One of the agents singled out nine of the fifteen students because they allegedly had terrorist connections. The agents also forced a university professor out of his home because of an alleged link to terrorism.
Ordinola and the other Colina Group agents loaded the professor and nine students into several trucks and drove them to a location on the Ramiro Priale Highway. There, the agents made them dig trenches, forced them into the holes, shot and killed them, and buried them. One or two days later, several agents, including Ordinola, exhumed the bodies, moved them to another location, and incinerated them because they were concerned that the bodies might be discovered. For this incident, Peru has charged Ordinola with Aggravated Homicide, Aggravated Kidnapping, and Forced Disappearance of Persons, in violation of Articles, 108, 152, and 320 of the Peruvian Criminal Code.
3. The Barrientos Case.
On May 1, 1992, Peruvian Army General Juan Rivero Lazo summoned leaders of the Colina Group to a meeting with Jorge Fung Pineda, a private property owner who had friends in the Peruvian military. Pineda told the agents that some of his workers at his cotton mill were demanding higher wages and improved machinery. Pineda asked the agents to link the workers to terrorism and to "teach them a good lesson." (J.A. at 23.)
Later that day, Ordinola and other Coli-na Group agents, while dressed as civilians, armed themselves and kidnapped nine of the workers, taking one person from the road while he was riding a bicycle and the other eight from their homes. Or-dinola and the other agents killed all nine people and buried them at a nearby farm. Before they left, the agents painted "written marks and phrases regarding the 'Shining Path' with red paint" around the scene to make it appear that the crimes were perpetrated by the Shining Path. (J.A. at 9, 24.) For this incident, Peru has charged Ordinola with Aggravated Homicide and Aggravated Kidnapping, in violation of Articles 108 and 152 of the Peruvian Criminal Code.
4. The Bustamante Case.
In June 1992, Pedro Yauri Bustamante was living in Huacho, Peru, and working as director of the daily news program called, "Punto Final," which aired on a local radio station. On the show, Busta-mante and his call-in listeners frequently criticized the Fujimori government. The Fujimori administration had classified Bustamante as a subversive activist because he had previously been investigated for terrorist activities.
On June 22, 1992, Major Santiago Martin Rivas called members of the Colina Group, including Ordinola, to a meeting and told them that the next day they would carry out an operation in Huacho. On June 23, the agents, armed and carrying shovels, lime, and ski masks, left the grounds of the former Peruvian Intelligence Service and traveled in two vehicles to an area near the beach. Major Rivas directed one group of agents to stay at the beach and dig a grave in the sand and directed the other group to kidnap Busta-mante and bring him back to the beach.
Around 2:00 a.m. on June 24, 1992, the assigned group broke into Bustamante's house, tied up him and his father, confiscated several documents, and forced Bus-tamante into the agents' vehicle. The agents drove him to the beach, where Major Rivas interrogated Bustamante. Bus-tamante refused to answer Rivas's questions because he knew they were going to kill him anyway. The group forced Busta-mante to dig the rest of his grave, and Agent Luis Ortiz Mantas fatally shot Bus-tamante in the head. The agents then buried Bustamante. Agent Aguirre identified Ordinola as a participant in Busta-mante's abduction and murder. For this incident, Peru has charged Ordinola with Aggravated Homicide and Aggravated Kidnapping, in violation of Articles 108 and 152 of the Peruvian Criminal Code.
C.
Ordinola entered the United States on February 20, 2001, and filed a petition for political asylum on June 22, 2001. On November 12, 2003, pursuant to the bilateral Extradition Treaty with the Republic of Peru, the United States Department of State received four Diplomatic Notes from the Peruvian Embassy requesting that United States authorities obtain provisional arrest warrants in connection with the extradition of Ordinola.
On September 24, 2004, a United States magistrate judge issued a provisional arrest warrant for Ordinola pending his extradition. On June 10, 2005, the magistrate judge, having previously held an extradition hearing pursuant to 18 U.S.C.A. § 3184 (West 2000) and the terms of the Treaty, found that probable cause existed to believe that Ordinola had committed the alleged crimes. Turning to the question of whether Ordinola's crimes were extraditable under the Treaty, the magistrate judge first found that the charged crimes satisfied the dual criminality requirement. The magistrate judge next concluded that Ordinola's alleged crimes did not fit within the political offense exception to extradition. The magistrate judge ruled that although Ordinola's alleged crimes occurred during a severe political uprising, the crimes were not sufficiently incidental to the uprising and thus did not fall within the exception. He reasoned that any political intentions Ordinola had in committing the alleged crimes were not enough to render the acts political offenses in light of the fact that Ordinola committed the crimes against noncombatant civilians and engaged in acts that violated the laws of armed conflict and international standards of civilized conduct. Accordingly, the magistrate judge certified Ordinola's extradition to the Secretary of State.
On July 20, 2005, Ordinola filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the Eastern District of Virginia, alleging that he was being held in violation of the Extradition Treaty. On November 21, 2005, the district court granted the writ, concluding that the magistrate judge had properly found probable cause to believe that Ordi-nola committed the charged crimes but had wrongly concluded that Ordinola's offenses did not fit within the political offense exception. The court concluded that Ordinola's crimes were sufficiently incidental to the political uprising because the Peruvian government led Ordinola to believe that the victims of Ordinola's crimes were terrorists. As such, the court reasoned that Ordinola did not knowingly kill innocent civilians.
The Government timely appealed. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.A. § 1291 (West 2006).
II.
The political offense exception to extradition forbids countries from extraditing people who are accused of offenses that are "political" in nature. Like the vast majority of modern-day extradition treaties, the extradition Treaty between the United States and Peru provides a political offense exception:
Extradition shall not be granted if the offense for which extradition is requested constitutes a political offense.
Extradition Treaty, art. IV, sec. 2. Unfortunately, however, these treaties do not define "political offense." Accordingly, we are forced to rely on judicial constructions, history, purpose, and State Department interpretations to determine the phrase's meaning. See United States v. Al-Hamdi, 356 F.3d 564, 570 (4th Cir.2004) ("When the text [of the treaty] is ambiguous or unclear, we turn to nontextual sources for guidance."). Although the exception has been ingrained in our country's extradition treaties for well over a century, this Circuit has never expressly addressed the exception. We do so now, beginning with an explanation of the exception's history and purpose.
Extradition requests are of ancient origin. Extradition was the process by which states requested the surrender of "pure" political offenders, i.e., those accused of treason and contemptuous behavior toward the monarch. M. Cherif Bas-siouni, International Extradition: United States Law and Practice 594 (4th ed.2002). The first known extradition treaty — representing "one of the oldest documents in diplomatic history" — was entered into by the Egyptians and Hittites circa 1280 B.C. Id. at 32. The political offense exception to extradition, however, is a far more recent development, tracing its beginnings to the Enlightenment ideals encapsulated in the French and American revolutions.
These ideals supported a belief that people possessed an inalienable right to resist and abolish tyrannical governments. See, e.g., The Declaration of Independence para. 1 (U.S.1776) ("We hold these truths to be self-evident.... That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.... "). It was with these ideals in mind that Thomas Jefferson, as Secretary of State in 1792, recommended against entering into an extradition treaty with Spain:
[M]ost Codes extend their definitions of treason to acts not really against one's country. They do not distinguish between acts against the government and acts against the Oppressions of the government. The latter are virtues: yet have furnished more victims to the Executioner than the former. Because real treasons are rare: Oppressions frequent. The unsuccessful Struggles against Tyranny have been the chief Martyrs of Treason laws in all countries . [W]e should not wish then to give up to the Executioner the Patriot who fails, and flees to us.
Letter from Thomas Jefferson to William Carmichael and William Short (Apr. 24, 1792), in 6 The Works of Thomas Jefferson (Correspondence 1789-1792), at 447-48 (Paul Leicester Ford ed., 1904) (emphasis in original).
The theory underpinning the political offense exception, then, is as old as our country. The exception was deemed necessary to protect those people who justly fought back against their government oppressors to secure political change. In 1843, a decade after nations such as Belgium, France, and Switzerland included the political offense exception in their extradition treaties, the United States followed suit. Bassiouni, supra, at 599-600.
Traditionally, there have been two categories of political offenses: "pure" and "relative." The core "pure" political offenses are treason, sedition, and espionage. Vo v. Benov, 447 F.3d 1235, 1241 (9th Cir.2006). "Pure" political offenses do not have any of the elements of a common crime because "[s]uch laws exist solely because the very political entity, the state, has criminalized such conduct for its self-preservation." Bassiouni, supra, at 604. Such crimes are perpetrated directly against the state and do not intend to cause private injury. Most extradition treaties preclude extradition for "pure" political offenses. "Relative" political offenses, on the other hand, are common crimes that are so intertwined with a political act that the offense itself becomes a political one. Id. at 607-08. As evidenced by this discussion, while "pure" political offenses are easy to identify, determining whether a common offense is "relatively" political requires close attention to the specific facts at issue.
Most American courts addressing "relative" political offenses have developed a two-prong test to determine whether an offense is sufficiently political to fall within the exception. Known as "the incidence test," it asks whether (1) there was a violent political disturbance or uprising in the requesting country at the time of the alleged offense, and if so, (2) whether the alleged offense was incidental to or in the furtherance of the uprising. See, e.g., Vo, 447 F.3d at 1241. We, too, adopt the incidence test as our lodestar.
III.
Pursuant to 18 U.S.C.A. § 3184, a magistrate judge has jurisdiction to review the evidence to determine whether an extradition request can be sustained under a treaty. If the magistrate determines that the suspect is extraditable, it must then certify the question to the Secretary of State, who is entrusted with the ultimate executive power of determining extradition. 18 U.S.C.A. § 3186 (West 2000). Thus, before extradition can take place, an applicable treaty must exist, and the suspect must be able to challenge application of the treaty by both judicial and executive review.
In Ornelas v. Ruiz, 161 U.S. 502, 16 S.Ct. 689, 40 L.Ed. 787 (1896), the Supreme Court explained that the political offense extradition question presents "a question of mixed law and fact, but chiefly of fact." Id. at 509. The Court, however, afforded broad deference to the magistrate's finding of extraditability, explaining that it was reviewing to determine only whether the magistrate "had no choice, on the evidence, but to hold . that this was a movement in aid of a political revolt . and that acts which contained all the characteristics of crimes under the ordinary law were exempt from extradition because of the political intention of those who committed them." Id. at 511, 16 S.Ct. 689 (emphasis added).
This "no choice" language brings to mind the substantial evidence or clear error standard employed by courts today. For example, in deciding under the substantial evidence standard whether to reverse the immigration agency's decision to deny asylum, we will uphold the decision unless the petitioner can show that the evidence he presented would have "compelled" a reasonable factfinder to conclude otherwise. See, e.g., I.N.S. v. Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478, 483-84, 112 S.Ct. 812, 117 L.Ed.2d 38 (1992). Ornelas's standard of review also meshes nicely with the language of § 3184, which instructs the fact-finder to sustain the charge under the provisions of the treaty if "he deems the evidence sufficient." 18 U.S.C.A. § 3184.
Thus, we are left with a standard of review that recognizes the political offense question as a mixed question of law and fact, but mostly of fact. Ornelas, 161 U.S. at 509, 16 S.Ct. 689. On habeas review, we must grant a magistrate's factual findings great deference and affirm the decision unless it is "palpably erroneous in law" and a reasonable factfinder would have had "no choice" but to conclude that the offender was acting in furtherance of a political uprising. Id. at 509, 511, 16 S.Ct. 689.
TV.
The Government argues that the district court failed to afford the magistrate judge's opinion proper deference and that it misapplied the political offense exception because Ordinola's offenses were not incident to the political uprising in Peru. It contends that if allowed to stand, the opinion would extend the narrow doctrine "to virtually every misdeed, no matter how heinous, committed by a person purporting to act under a political cloak." (Appellant's Br. at 29.) Ordinola, on the other hand, argues that the district court did not err and that there exists a close nexus between Ordinola's alleged actions and his political objective. We agree in principle with the Government.
A.
There is no direct appeal for an individual found to be extraditable by a magistrate. See Collins v. Miller, 252 U.S. 364, 369, 40 S.Ct. 347, 64 L.Ed. 616 (1920). Rather, a writ of habeas corpus is the only available means to challenge the magistrate's finding. A judge conducting habeas review of an extradition case is subject to substantial limitations and is not free "to rehear what the magistrate has already decided." Fernandez v. Phillips, 268 U.S. 311, 312, 45 S.Ct. 541, 69 L.Ed. 970 (1925). The magistrate's decision therefore "cannot be reviewed on the weight of the evidence." Ornelas, 161 U.S. at 509, 16 S.Ct. 689. "[HJabeas corpus is available only to inquire whether the magistrate had jurisdiction, whether the offense charged is within the treaty and, by a somewhat liberal extension, whether there was any evidence warranting the finding that there was reasonable ground to believe the accused guilty" of the asserted crimes. Fernandez, 268 U.S. at 312, 45 S.Ct. 541. Under habeas review, "the political offense question is reviewable . as part of the question of whether the offense charged is within the treaty." Quinn v. Robinson, 783 F.2d 776, 791 (9th Cir.1986).
As an initial matter, then, the district court plainly erred in reviewing de novo the entirety of the magistrate judge's decision and affording his factual findings no deference. For one of many examples, the district court's finding that "Ordinola did not knowingly murder innocent civilians," (J.A. at 528), is contradicted by the magistrate judge's opposite finding that Ordinola's victims "were clearly civilians." (J.A. at 31.) As another example, the magistrate judge found that the young boy allegedly murdered by Ordinola "as he was running to help his dying father was almost certainly not a terrorist." (J.A. at 31.) The district court, however, rejected this finding as "irrelevant" because of its independent factual finding that "several of the Shining Path members themselves barely reached adolescence before participating in the insurgency's violent and brutal tactics." (J.A. at 527.)
Such rejection of the magistrate judge's factfinding was improper because the district court was not free to "to rehear what the magistrate has already decided." Fernandez, 268 U.S. at 312, 45 S.Ct. 541. Rather, as a habeas court, the district court was constrained by the same standard of review that is articulated in the discussion above for this Court. Because the magistrate judge was the factfin-der and its decision was not subject to direct appeal, the district court erred by not paying substantial deference to the magistrate judge's factual findings. See, e.g., Quinn, 783 F.2d at 792 (explaining that "[i]t would make little sense for us to ignore the factual findings of the judicial tribunal that made the initial factual determinations and defer, instead, to the differing factual findings made by a [later] tribunal that merely reviewed the record of the earlier proceedings"); Eain v. Wilkes, 641 F.2d 504, 508 (7th Cir.1981) ("The scope of habeas corpus review in extradition cases is a limited one, according due deference to the magistrate's initial determination."). Thus, although the district court was free to make its own legal conclusions so long as they were supported by the magistrate judge's factual findings, it was not free to ignore or misinterpret those findings in an effort to reach a desired legal conclusion.
B.
To fall within the political offense exception, Ordinola's alleged actions must have been incidental to or in furtherance of a violent political uprising in Peru. Although Ordinola's actions occurred in the course of a violent political uprising, he cannot show that the magistrate judge erred in finding that those actions were not in furtherance of quelling the uprising.
As an initial matter, we—like the magistrate judge and district court—have little • trouble in agreeing that the alleged actions here occurred during the course of a violent political uprising. The Peruvian government and the Shining Path were engaged in a violent struggle for control of the country. According to one expert's opinion of the situation in 1992, "[approximately 50 percent of Peruvian territory and approximately 65 percent of the country's population [was] under a state of national emergency." (J.A. at 108 (The Threat of the Shining Path to Democracy in Peru: Hearing Before the Subcomm. on Western Hemisphere Affairs of the H. Comm, on Foreign Affairs, 102d Cong. 17 (1992) (statement of Gordon H. McCormick, senior social scientist, RAND Corp.)).) Clearly, then, it is appropriate to describe the situation in Peru at the time of Ordinola's alleged actions as "a political revolt, an insurrection, or a civil war." Ornelas, 161 U.S. at 511, 16 S.Ct. 689.
The more difficult question is whether Ordinola's alleged offenses were incident to the political uprising. First, we recognize that it makes little sense to ask whether his actions were in furtherance of or "in aid" of the uprising. See id. Ordi-nola, acting on behalf of the Peruvian government, was attempting to defeat, not aid, the uprising. Accordingly, we must slightly alter the question and instead ask whether Ordinola's actions were incident to or in furtherance of quelling the violent uprising.
The parties disagree over the extent to which this test is subjective or objective. The district court, for example, focused in part on its independent factual finding that Ordinola had no "knowledge regarding the innocence of the civilians" at the time of the attacks and thus intended to quell the uprising via his actions. (J.A. at 526-27.) The Government contends that it is a mistake to focus on the intentions, or motives, of the accused. Instead, the Government argues, courts must concentrate on the act itself, as the Treaty exempts political offenses, not politically motivated offenders.
We conclude that courts must look at the question both subjectively and objectively, although the objective view must usually carry more weight. Courts have long recognized the relevancy of subjective motives in the political offense context. See, e.g., In re Castioni [1891] 1 Q.B. 149, 158 (1890) (Opinion of Denman, J.) ("It must at least be shown that the act is done in furtherance of, done with the intention of assistance, as a sort of overt act in the course of acting in a political matter, a political uprising, or a dispute between two parties in the State as to which is to have the government in its hands." (emphasis added)); Ornelas, 161 U.S. at 511, 16 S.Ct. 689 (inquiring whether the acts "were perpetrated with bona fide political or revolutionary designs"). We read these cases to mean that for a claimant to come within the protections of the political offense exception, it is necessary, but not sufficient, for the claimant to show that he was politically motivated. In other words, a claimant whose common crime was not subjectively politically motivated cannot come within the exception regardless of whether the offense itself could be described as an objectively "political" one.
Aside from the subjective component, a claimant must also show that the offense was objectively political. See, e.g., Bas-siouni, supra, at 602 (explaining that a test that focuses solely on motives "fails to appreciate the distinction between the nature of the offense and the motives of the actor"). This is because the Treaty itself exempts political offenses, and a political motivation does not turn every illegal action into a political offense. The Treaty, then, cannot be read to protect every act— no matter how unjustifiable and no matter the victim — simply because the suspect can proffer a political rationale for the action. See, e.g., Ahmad v. Wigen, 910 F.2d 1063, 1066 (2d Cir.1990) ("Political motivation does not convert every crime into a political offense."); Escobedo v. United States, 623 F.2d 1098, 1104 (5th Cir.1980) ("An offense is not of a political character simply because it was politically motivated.").
Here, we assume without deciding that Ordinola's actions were politically motivated. The magistrate judge did not explicitly address the question; instead, he fo .cused on the objective side of the inquiry. The district court, on the other hand, appeared to base its grant of the writ on its independent conclusion that Ordinola was politically motivated. We see no reason to delve into this inquiry because, as explained below, we conclude that Ordinola is charged with offenses that are not political under the Treaty.
To determine whether a particular offense is political under the Treaty, we must look to the totality of the circumstances, focusing on such particulars as the mode of the attack and the identity of the victims, for example. In Ornelas, the Supreme. Court examined Mexico's extradition request for a member of a band of armed men who attacked and killed a group of Mexican soldiers and civilians. Ornelas claimed that he was part of a border revolutionary movement and that his actions were in furtherance of that movement. Ornelas, 161 U.S. at 510-11, 16 S.Ct. 689. In a similar procedural posture to this case, the magistrate determined that the acts were not of a political character, but the district court disagreed on habeas review. In reviewing the Government's appeal, the Supreme Court queried whether the magistrate had "no choice, on the evidence, but to hold, in view of the character of the foray, the mode of attack, the persons killed or captured, and the kind of property taken or destroyed," that Ornelas's offenses were political. Id. at 511, 16 S.Ct. 689. In answering that question in the negative, the Supreme Court found it relevant that, inter alia, "private citizens" were the victims of some of the assaults, private property was taken, and Ornelas was part of a bandit group, acting without "uniforms or flag." Id. at 510,16 S.Ct. 689.
In examining the Colina Group's modes of attack, the magistrate judge noted that Ordinola was being charged for his role in killing fifteen people when the Colina Group "opened fire on [a] crowd of men, women, and children." (J.A. at 19.) He also noted that Ordinola and other Colina Group agents made a group of students "dig trenches, forced them into the holes, killed them with gunfire, and buried them." (J.A. at 20-21.) Likewise, masked agents kidnapped a director of a news program, forced him to dig his grave, and killed him by shooting him in his head. Finally, the magistrate judge found that the agents acted on behalf of á friend of the military — who was perturbed by his workers' demands for higher wages — by kidnapping and murdering the men and then decorating the scene with Shining Path symbols to make it appear that the men had fallen victim to the Shining Path. The mode of these attacks does not favor Ordinola. They suggest a level of indiscriminate, clandestine killing based on suspect intelligence and political favors, as well as subsequent cover-ups that attempted to conceal the murders and destroy evidence. See, e.g., Matter of Extradition of Marzook, 924 F.Supp. 565, 577 (S.D.N.Y.1996) (rejecting political offense exception because of indiscriminate killings of civilians that approach "crimes abhorrent to human nature").
Ordinola fares no better when looking to "the persons killed." Ornelas, 161 U.S. at 511, 16 S.Ct. 689. None of the victims at issue here were armed at the time of attack or engaging in any overt hostility toward the Peruvian government. The magistrate judge accordingly found that "the victims in this case were clearly civilians, and of those who were alleged to have terrorist connections, evidence of such connections is tenuous at best." (J.A. at 31.) In so finding, the magistrate judge noted, inter alia, that the little boy who was killed while running to aid his dying father "was almost certainly not a terrorist, and the same can most likely be said for the other partygoers." (J.A. at 31.) The magistrate judge also found that the factory workers were targeted not because they were terrorists, but "because their boss wanted to retaliate against them for demanding better working conditions." (J.A. at 31.)
Recognizing the exceeding difficulty in attacking the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the magistrate judge's findings that the victims were not active members of the Shining Path, see Ornelas, 161 U.S. at 512, 16 S.Ct. 689 ("It is enough if it appear[s] that there was legal evidence on which the [magistrate judge] might properly conclude that the accused had committed offenses within the treaty as charged . " (emphasis added)); cf. Anderson v. City of Bessemer, 470 U.S. 564, 574, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985) (holding that a reviewing court may not reverse a plausible account of the evidence "even though convinced that had it been sitting as the trier of fact, it would have weighed the evidence differently"), Ordinola instead contends that the civilian status of the victims is not especially relevant in this instance. We disagree.
Ordinola relies on language from Quinn v. Robinson, where the Ninth Circuit concluded that "there is no justification for distinguishing . between attacks on military and civilian targets." Quinn, 783 F.2d at 810. In support of this "nonjudgmental" contention, the court noted its view that "[i]t is for the revolutionaries, not the courts, to determine what tactics may help further their chances of bringing down or changing the government." Id.
We respectfully disagree with this conclusion and hold that there are in fact sound justifications for distinguishing between civilian and governmental — or in this case, revolutionary — targets. The first justification, of course, is that the Supreme Court has held that the civilian status of the "persons killed" is relevant. Ornelas, 161 U.S. at 511, 16 S.Ct. 689. Moreover, both the Second and Seventh Circuits have addressed the question and have concluded, like we do, that the status of the victims is relevant. See Ahmad, 910 F.2d at 1066 (holding that an attack on a commercial bus full of innocent civilians was not a political offense despite the existence of a political motivation); Eain, 641 F.2d at 521 (holding that "the indiscriminate bombing of a civilian populace is not recognized as a protected political act").
Second, it must be remembered that we are interpreting the Treaty to define the term "political offense." In doing so, we must afford "great weight" to the meaning attributed to the provision by the State Department, as it is charged with enforcing the Treaty. Sumitomo Shoji Am., Inc. v. Avagliano, 457 U.S. 176, 184-85, 102 S.Ct. 2374, 72 L.Ed.2d 765 (1982); see also Al-Hamdi, 356 F.3d at 570 (granting "substantial deference" to the State Department's interpretation of provisions of the Vienna Convention). The State Department has previously expressed the view that "the political offense exception is not applicable to violent attacks on civilians," Ahmad v. Wigen, 726 F.Supp. 389, 402 (E.D.N.Y.1989), aff'd, 910 F.2d 1063 (2d Cir.1990), and at oral argument, Government counsel informed us that the department continues to generally adhere to that view.
Third, the status of the victims has been an important factor since the inception of the political offense exception. See, e.g., Ahmad, 726 F.Supp. at 404 ("In finding no distinction between targets, the Ninth Circuit ignored the fact that the civilian status of victims has been a significant factor in the political offense calculus since the nineteenth century."). In fact, aside from Ninth Circuit caselaw, we can find no other American authority stating that the civilian status of victims is irrelevant. Rather, the precedents and authorities stand firmly on the opposite front. See, e.g., Ornelas, 161 U.S. at 511, 16 S.Ct. 689; Ahmad, 910 F.2d at 1066; Eain, 641 F.2d at 520-21; Manuel R. Garcia-Mora, Crimes Against Humanity and the Principle of Nonextradition of Political Offenders, 62 Mich. L.Rev. 927, 944 (1964) ("[T]he means by which hostilities are conducted must be legitimately connected with the war to be characterized as political. It can scarcely be denied that the commission of atrocities during the conduct of hostilities or during belligerent occupation has no connection with furthering the legitimate policy of the State."); Steven Lubet & Morris Czackes, The Role of the American Judiciary in the Extradition of Political Terrorists, 71 J. Crim L. & Criminology 193, 202 (1980) ("[A]n of fense having its impact upon the citizenry, but not directly upon the government, does not fall within the political offense exception").
Fourth, by refusing to examine the scope of the attack, the mode of the attack, and the victims of the attack, the Ninth Circuit's approach results in defining a political offense as any common crime that occurs during a political uprising so long as the accused claims a political motive connected to the uprising. As explained above, we must reject such a subjective test. See also Eain, 641 F.2d at 521 (explaining the danger of abusing a treaty to protect criminals "simply because [their crimes] occurred during a time of political upheaval").
Accordingly, the magistrate judge's reasonable finding that Ordinola's alleged offenses were carried out against innocent civilians largely dooms Ordinola's argument. Because that finding was legitimately made, it simply cannot be said that the magistrate judge had no choice but to define Ordinola's alleged actions as political offenses. To have been considered political offenses, Ordinola's actions would had to have been in some way proportional to or in furtherance of quelling the Shining Path's rebellion. See id. at 521 (noting that the "legitimacy of a cause does not in itself legitimize the use of certain forms of violence especially against the innocent" (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted)). The magistrate judge did not err in recognizing that terror, for terror's sake, was not a sufficient method of quelling the Shining Path's uprising. Cf id. ("The exception does not make . the cold-blooded murder of civilians incidental to a purpose of toppling a government, absent a direct link between the perpetrator, a political organization's political goals, and the specific act."); Lubet & Czackes, supra, at 202 ("An offense which is intended only to disrupt the social order, but not to maintain or alter the government, is not political.").
C.
Finally, both parties suggest that we make inferences based on the motives of the requesting government. For example, Ordinola contends that "a new government seeks to punish [him as a] member[ ] of a former government for [his] conduct in suppressing a violent uprising." (Appellant's Br. at 29.) The Government, for its part, points out that this is not a "new government" comprised of the revolutionaries Ordinola once fought; rather, it is the same democratically elected government — albeit a different administration— that requests Ordinola's extradition. Although the Government's interpretation is correct on the facts, the motives of the requesting government are irrelevant to our decision. The Treaty states that extradition will be denied "if the executive authority of the Requested State determines that the request was politically moti vated." Extradition Treaty, art. IV, sec. 3 (emphasis added). Any question into the Peruvian government's motivations is therefore well beyond this Court's legitimate realm of authority under the Treaty and must be addressed solely to the Secretary of State. See Earn, 641 F.2d at 513 ("It is the settled rule that it is within the Secretary of State's sole discretion to determine whether or not a country's requisition for extradition is made with a view to try or punish the fugitive for a political crime, ie., whether the request is a subterfuge."); cf. United States v. Kin-Hong, 110 F.3d 103, 111 (1st Cir.1997) ("[I]t is not that questions about what awaits the relator in the requesting country are irrelevant to extradition; it is that there is another branch of government, which has both final say and greater discretion in these proceedings, to whom these questions are more properly addressed.").
V.
For the reasons outlined above, the district court erred in granting Ordinola's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. In affording proper deference under habeas review to the magistrate's decision, we simply cannot say that the magistrate judge had "no choice" but to find that the common crimes Ordinola is alleged to have committed against noncombatant civilians were political offenses under the Treaty with Peru. We therefore must vacate the district court's grant of the writ, and remand for reentry of a Certification of Extraditability. We note, however, that judicial review is not the only recourse available to Ordinola, as he is free to contest his extradition before the United States Secretary of State.
VACATED AND REMANDED.
. In September 1992, Peruvian officials captured Abimael Guzman, who was still acting as the Shining Path's leader. The Peruvian courts convicted Guzman and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
. Toward the end of 2000, Fujimori's government collapsed amidst a significant political corruption scandal. The Peruvian Congress declared Fujimori morally unfit for service; subsequently, Fujimori went into exile in Japan and tendered his resignation. Upon taking office, Alejandro Toledo, Fujim-ori's successor, directed his administration to investigate the Colina Group's actions in the early 1990s.
In 2005, Fujimori traveled from Japan to Chile to launch his political comeback. He was arrested shortly thereafter at the behest of the Peruvian government, and is currently awaiting Peru's request for extradition. See Tyler Bridges, Massacres could doom Fujimo-ri's legal case; Tlie death-squad killings in Barrios Altos and La Cantuta are the most serious charges facing fonner President Alberto Fujimori back in Peru, The Miami Herald, Nov. 9, 2005, at Al. Some of the charges against Fujimori are for his role in "using a death squad to kill 25 people in two incidents known as La Cantuta and Barrios Altos." Peru seelcs Fujimori extradition, BBC News, Mar. 1, 2006. Ordinola has likewise been charged for his involvement in the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta massacres. In addition, Montesinos has been sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment for brokering a deal to send 10,000 assault rifles to Colombian guerrillas and 15 years' imprisonment for corruption charges. Simon Romero, World Briefing Americas: Peru: New Conviction For Ex-Spy Chief, N.Y. Times, Sept. 23, 2006, at A5. He has also been charged with various crimes for his connection with the Colina Group.
. In 2001, The Inter-American Court of Human Rights found that Peru, which had accepted international responsibility for the massacre, had violated "the right to life embodied in Article 4 of the American Convention on Human Rights" with respect to the fifteen dead and "the right to humane treatment embodied in Article 5 of the American Convention on Human Rights" with respect to the four injured. Barrios Altos Case, Inter-Am Ct. H.R. (Ser. C) No. 75 (2001), available at http://wwwl .umn.edu/humanrts/iachr/C/ 75-ing.html.
. Lime, or calcium oxide (CaO), is commonly used in the burial of bodies in open graves because the compound suppresses the odor of decomposing bodies. See Wikipedia, Calcium oxide, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_ oxide (last visited Nov. 29, 2006); see also Rice v. Paladin Enters., 128 F.3d 233, 238 (4th Cir.1997) (noting that lime can be used when burying bodies "to prevent the horrible odor of decomposition").
. Eight Colina Group officers were convicted in 1994 for the La Cantuta killings. In 1995, however, following Fujimori's landslide reelection victory, Peru's congress enacted a law granting amnesty to all military personnel accused of human-rights violations between 1980 and 1995, including the Colina Group members convicted for their role at La Cantu-ta. See Lawrence J. Speer, Amnesty for military drives wedge into Peru, The Washington Times, July 2, 1995, at A7.
. Coincidentally, on November 26, 2003, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Immigration, and Customs Enforcement arrested Ordinola in Northern Virginia for immigration fraud under 18 U.S.C.A. § 1546 (West 2000). Ordinola subsequently pleaded guilty to those charges and was sentenced to time served.
. The dual criminality requirement ensures that the charged conduct is considered criminal and punishable as a felony in both the country requesting the suspect and the country surrendering the suspect. See Extradition Treaty, U.S.-Peru, July 26, 2001, S. Treaty Doc. No 107-6, art. II, sec. 1 ("Extradition Treaty") ("An offense shall be an extraditable offense if it is punishable under the laws in both Contracting States by deprivation of liberty for a maximum period of more than one year or by a more severe penalty.").
. The Old Testament, for example, recounts the story of a Levite concubine who was raped by a band of Benjamites until she died. The other tribes of Israel demanded extradition of the guilty men. The Benjamites refused, leading to a war in which the Benjam-ites were largely destroyed. See Judges 20.
. Arguments sounding in the exception were made in the famous extradition case of Jonathan Robbins at the turn of the Nineteenth Century. The British requested Robbins's extradition for his role in a mutiny aboard a British ship. Although Robbins claimed he was an American impressed into service by the British and was seeking to restore his liberty, President Adams came to the unpopular conclusion that Robbins should be extradited. See United States v. Robins, 27 F.Cas. 825 (D.S.C.1799) ("[Robbins] was warranted by the most sacred rights of nature, and the laws of nations, to have recourse to violence in the recovery of that liberty, of which he had been unjustly deprived."); see also Ex Parte Kaine, 14 F. Cas. 78, 81 (S.D.N.Y.1853) ("It was the apprehension of the people of this country, at the time, that the offence of Jonathan Robbins . was a political offense . Assuming such apprehension to have been well founded, the intense public indignation that followed was creditable to the nation.").
. 18 U.S.C.A. § 3184 (West 2000) provides:
Whenever there is a treaty or convention for extradition between the United States and any foreign government, . any justice or judge of the United States, or any magistrate judge authorized so to do by a court of the United States, or any judge of a court of record of general jurisdiction of any State, may, upon complaint made under oath, charging any person found within his jurisdiction, with having committed within the jurisdiction of any such foreign government any of the crimes provided for by such treaty or convention, . issue his warrant for the apprehension of the person so charged, that he may be brought before such justice, judge, or magistrate, to the end that the evidence of criminality may be heard and considered.... If, on such hearing, he deems the evidence sufficient to sustain the charge under the provisions of the proper treaty or convention, . he shall certify the same, together with a copy of all the testimony taken before him, to the Secretary of State, that a warrant may issue upon the requisition of the proper authorities of such foreign government, for the surrender of such person, according to the stipulations of the treaty or convention; and he shall issue his warrant for the commitment of the person so charged to the proper jail, there to remain until such surrender shall be made.
. Although opposites, asylum, which involves the request of an individual, and extradition, which involves the request of a state, historically have been linked. See generally M. Cherif Bassiouni, International Extradition: United States Law and Practice 153-82 (4th ed.2002). That said, "extradition and asylum proceedings are not related, and the legislative authority on which extradition relies is different from that of asylum." Id. at 174.
. There also exists a colorable argument that the exception applies only to those fighting government oppression, and therefore not to government actors. See In the Matter of the Requested Extradition of Suarez-Mason, 694 F.Supp. 676, 705 (N.D.Cal.1988) (concluding that "the principles underlying the political offense exception are ill-served by extending its protection to former government officials"). The Government expressly declined to make this argument, and we will not do so sua sponte in the absence of full argument by the parties. We note, however, that although such a limitation finds strong support in the history and original purpose of the rule, no such limitation can be inferred from the plain language of the Treaty. We further note that in this age of guerrilla warfare, where different factions often control individual pockets of a country in the midst of a civil war, it might be beyond the judiciary's competency to determine whether the nominal government party is in fact the ruling party in any particular situs.
. By way of example, consider a hostage situation where the hostage takers demand the release from prison of their revolutionary leader as the condition for the release of the hostages. But this demand is in fact a ruse to distract the government and its hostage negotiators. The true interest of the hostage takers is in buying time so that they can break into a large vault containing valuables housed in the same building as the hostages. Thus, although the offense could be viewed as objectively political, the offenders have only a monetary motive and therefore could not take advantage of the political offense exception. For a cinematic variation of this example, see Die Hard (20th Century Fox 1988).
. The district court suggested that it could not examine the status of the victims because "to do so would intrude upon the internal affairs of Peru." (J.A. at 528.) Of course, this begs the unanswered questions of how and why.
The district court further suggested that the exception must apply to government actors "seeking to protect their legal order as opposed to protecting a terrorist organization's violent attempts to overthrow the government." (J.A. at 522.) This distinction is nonsensical. There is no reason to assume that the two are mutually exclusive. First, one could decide that the political offense exception does not apply to "terrorists" while at the same time deciding that it does not apply to government actors seeking to protect the legal order, or vice versa. Second, when government actors "protect their legal order" through legal means, there can be no extradition. Extradition is only proper for acts that are criminalized in both nations. Regardless, to assuage the district court's fears of protecting terrorists, we note that the Treaty itself provides that "offenses related to terrorism, as set forth in multilateral international agreements to which both Contracting States are parties" shall not be considered to be political offenses. Extradition Treaty, art. IV, sec. 2.
. Quinn was a member of the Irish Republican Army whom Great Britain sought to extradite for murder and bombings. Quinn v. Robinson, 783 F.2d 776, 781 (9th Cir.1986). The Ninth Circuit, in a splintered opinion with all three members of the panel writing, concluded that the political offense exception did not apply. Judge Reinhardt's lead opinion ultimately concluded that London (the site of the crimes) was not the situs of an ongoing rebellion. In dicta, however, Judge Reinhardt described a "liberal" test to decide whether the criminal action was closely connected or in furtherance of the political movement. Quinn, 783 F.2d at 809. Judge Fletcher dissented on the situs issue, but joined Judge Reinhardt's interpretation of the incidence test. Judge Duniway concurred in the situs holding, but rejected Judge Reinhardt's dicta. The Quinn majority saw no justification for a "strict nexus standard" because in its view, it was "the uprising' component that plays the key role in ensuring that the incidence test protects only those activities that the political offense doctrine was designed to protect." Id. at 806, 809. We disagree because focusing so intently on the presence of an uprising will push courts dangerously close to protecting "isolated acts of social violence undertaken for personal reasons . simply because they occurred during a time of political upheaval, a result we think the political offense exception was not meant to produce." Eain v. Wilkes, 641 F.2d 504, 521 (7th Cir.1981).
. Recently, Judge Rymer argued in dissent that an en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit should overrule Quinn and "instead follow the approach articulated by the Supreme Court in Ornelas." Barapind v. Enomoto, 400 F.3d 744, 753 (9th Cir.2005) (en banc) (Rymer, J., dissenting). Judge Rymer explained:
I believe we must overrule Quinn, because indiscriminate violence against innocent persons should not qualify for the political offense exception to extradition, even if politically motivated. Nor should the propriety of committing common crimes be left to the perpetrators' discretion. And civilians are different from the military. Overruling Quinn would realign us with the two circuits that have addressed attacks on noncombatant civilian targets and held them to be unprotected.
Id. at 756. We find her dissent persuasive.
. As an alternative holding, the magistrate judge found that "even assuming arguendo that the victims had more demonstrable ties to the Shining Path, Mr. Ordinola's alleged actions still fail to fall within the political offense exception, for they violate the laws of armed conflict." (J.A. at 31.) Ordinola argues that this was clear error. Because we hold that the magistrate judge did not err in its primary holding, we need not, and do not, reach the merits of its alternative holding. We note, however, that there exists support for both sides of the argument. Compare United States ex rel Karadzole v. Artukovic, 170 F.Supp. 383, 392 (S.D.Cal.1959) (finding that the political offense exception applies and rejecting the necessity of any inquiry into whether the accused's actions constituted "so-called war crimes"), with Ahmad v. Wigen, 726 F.Supp. 389, 408 (E.D.N.Y.1989) (holding that an action cannot be defined as a political offense if it "violate[s] the Law of Armed Conflict").
. There exists a plausible policy argument that extradition of former government officials should as a rule not be denied in cases like this, when it is the same government requesting the former official for prosecution. We cannot endorse such an argument, which finds no support in the text of the Treaty or the history of the exception. Moreover, if anything is for sure, it is that our treaties forbid the extradition of someone charged with pure political offenses, such as treason. There is no justification for abandoning judicial enforcement of that long-standing rule in certain cases simply because the treason was committed by a former government official seeking regime change.
Consider, for example, Soviet government officials who became disenchanted with communist ideology during the Cold War and sought to provide classified information to the United States as a means of instituting regime change in Russia. See Edward Jay Epstein, The Spy War, N.Y. Times Magazine, Sep. 28, 1980, at 34 (chronicling such spies). If one of those spies fled to the United States, and the Soviet government charged him with treason and sought his extradition as a former government employee, the United States judiciary would be required to certify him to the Secretary of State as extraditable under the rule noted above. Aside from the fact that this theory finds no support in the plain language of the Treaty or in the historical application of the political offense exception, the absurd result reached in the above hypothetical is alone enough to condemn the proposed rule. See Walton v. Johnson, 440 F.3d 160, 181 (4th Cir.2006) (en banc) (Williams, J., concurring) (explaining that there is good reason to reject a test when the "test founders in a hypothetical case that could come before the court").