Publicly available evidence demonstrates that Hamas’s principal leaders, including those residing in Qatar and Turkey, are responsible for the ongoing hostage taking of U.S. citizens in violation of U.S. law. President Biden, acting through the Justice Department, should immediately announce and pursue the prosecutions of culpable Hamas leaders. He should demand that Doha and Ankara provisionally arrest and detain them to facilitate U.S. custody for criminal prosecution.
Hamas holds hostage nearly 240 men, women and children, including 9 or 10 U.S. citizens, who the terrorist group seized in Israel on Oct. 7. In addition, among the more than 1,200 people Hamas murdered in Israel on Oct. 7 were at least 33 U.S. citizens, according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Those acts constitute violations of federal criminal laws, prohibiting hostage taking and murders of U.S. citizens, for which the culpable leaders and planners should be held to account.
Orde Kittrie is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a law professor at Arizona State University and author of “Lawfare: Law as a Weapon of War.” He previously served for more than a decade as a U.S. State Department attorney.
Steven Pelak is an attorney who served for 18 years as an assistant U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia and for six years as the deputy chief and chief of the Counterespionage Section in the National Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.