back to article 'Syrian Electronic Army' goon extradited from Germany now coughs to hacking, extortion

An associate of the self-styled Syrian Electronic Army has been sentenced to five years in an American prison for his part in running a cyber extortion scheme against businesses around the world. On Wednesday, Syrian-born Peter Romar, 37, pled guilty in a Virginia district court to conspiring to unlawfully access computers and …

  1. x 7

    twat deserves the death sentence for funding those evil murderous bastards

    1. Mark 85

      While they do deserve it, I thought the El Reg standard name was: medieval terror bastards

      1. Richard 26

        Optional

        That's ISIS/ISIL/Daesh. SEA is pro-Assad who is just a regular evil bastard.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Daesh - Useful Idiots Making Assad Look Good Since 2014

          Deash are a godsend for pieces of shit like Assad- or indeed pretty much any piece of shit that isn't allied to them- since they can point them and paint themselves as the lesser of two evils (#), insinuating that everyone not on their side is somehow associated with Daesh in the process.

          Of course, the fact that most of the people Assad is fighting *aren't* Daesh can be intentionally distorted and ignored since it's an incredibly convenient excuse for the Syrian government and their Russian allies (even if no-one actually believes that).

          Anyone supporting Daesh- either militarily, or through propaganda- deserves to be mercilessly smeared as a useful idiot for giving Assad and the like an excuse to commit the sort of atrocities that Daesh supporters foam at the mouth about- shortly before rushing off to join an organisation that is even worse in that respect. (For the latter reason, they also deserve to be *literally* smeared across the landscape... well, okay that's the sanitised version- what they actually deserve (##) probably can't be printed here, but I'd have no sympathy if they suffered the various slow, painful and barbaric deaths they'd willingly inflict on others).

          As for the guys involved in this hack, there's nothing wrong with them that a good barrel bombing wouldn't solve, though I'm not sure whether it's the Syrian government or the Russian allies that should be responsible for carrying that out......?

          (#) The problem with "lesser of two evils" is that it convienently minimises the evil of the person on the "winning side". In the Assad vs. Daesh, it would probably be more appopriate to describe the latter as "the greater of two evils"- and, as mentioned elsewhere, most of the people Assad is fighting *aren't* Daesh, but it's good for him to be able to lump them together, imply that they are and come out as the better option.

          (##) This shouldn't be taken as saying I'd condone this- on the contrary, I'd be strongly opposed to it being done because I come from a civilised society and there are very good reasons why we shouldn't be burning people to death in petrol-filled cages, even if that's what they'd do to us or anyone else.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I guess that's a good use for uncle sam's money then

    So the guy helps to transfer 16 grand in ransom money to somebody uncle sam does not approve of. To punish him, the US first pulls him from Germany (let's say 100 grand in costs), puts him on trial (another 100 grand if it was an uncomplicated trial), and sends him to a slammer for five years (at 80 grand per year, give or take). Once he serves his time, he'll be deported, but that's pretty cheap, so we won't count that.

    So we've just used a good fraction of a million dollars in US taxpayers' money to teach that guy a lesson he won't forget in a hurry.

    The same lesson could have been taught for tenth of the price by nailing him for money laundering in a German court, which most likely would have hit him with a juicy fine.

    1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

      Re: I guess that's a good use for uncle sam's money then

      The same lesson could have been taught for tenth of the price by nailing him for money laundering in a German court, which most likely would have hit him with a juicy fine.

      And a German jail term.

      What you are missing is a point of principle. While it makes sense financially, legally and from the point of view of sane international politics to push for local punishment this violates the idea of supremacy and extraterritoriality of American law. The way USA courts and USA judiciary interprets the 14th amendment and the precedent base on that, postulate that the rest of the world does not exist, international law does not exist, other country law does not exist, only American law exist and it is extraterritorial. Even one admission that this is severe case of delusion of grandure bollocks goes a long way towards unraveling that concept. As a result USA goes as far as refusing to try subjects in jurisdictions which will never ever extradite, but will accept an incoming transfer of a foreign originated criminal case against their cittizens (f.e. France).

      So do not expect any USA court or any USA law agency to attempt suing anyone in a foreign jurisdiction any time soon. Even if this means wasting 1M of taxpayers money on extraditing some useless Assad little helper wannabe which would have received a similar punishment locally.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I guess that's a good use for uncle sam's money then

        And a German jail term.

        May be, but may be not: German (and generally European) courts are not terribly keen on long custodial sentences. They are expensive to administer, are often associated with high levels of recidivism (often accompanied by progression to more hard-core offences), make subsequent reintegration hard, and are mostly viewed as the tool of the last resort.

        This tendency is clearly reflected in the relative prison populations: German incarceration rates are about 78 per 100,000, to be compared with 148 per in England and Whales and 698 per in the US. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate.

        Provided that this was his only serious transgression, he cooperated with the investigation, and his social and family ties in Germany are strong, a suspended sentence plus a substantial fine would have been a likely (although by no means guaranteed) outcome.

    2. phuzz Silver badge

      Re: I guess that's a good use for uncle sam's money then

      But presumably Western Union and PayPal made their cut from the money he was transferring, that should offset the costs slightly right?

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