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Japan protests Russia's expulsion of official; denies spying

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Real life privileges and immunities guarantee that diplomatic agents or members of their immediate family:

May be assassinated...

No. Why? If a nation starts assassinating another nations spies, aside from that being an act of war if the spy was an accredited diplomat posted to their embassy or a consulate, then expect that nation to return the favor and assassinate the host nation's spies. No rational nation wants to initiate a spiral of murder that way so at worst, nations declare another nation's intelligence officers "persona-non-grata" and expel them.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I meant to say "host nation" and not hose nation. Oooops.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Do they engage in spying, meaning the gathering of secret information, then the answer is mostly no (there are exceptions of course, but this is not the rule).

The point to be made is that while embassies and consulates are primarily involved in dialog with their host nation, promoting commerce and handling visa applications and other consular matters, when nations do send intelligence officers abroad they almost always send them under diplomatic cover so if they are caught the hose nation cannot arrest, try or imprison them. By being posted as diplomats they are protected. If that same nation sends intelligence officers to another nation under, say commercial cover, claiming to be business people and they get caught spying there is no protection for them. Pretty much every host nation knows which diplomats are legitimate diplomats or consular officials and which are intelligence officers operating under diplomatic cover.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Wholly irrelevant whether he was spying or not, whether he was caught red handed or not, he is an accredited diplomatic representative and as such is immune to arrest.

Unfortunately for him he is not an "diplomatic" representative, only a consulate official. 

Article 41 Personal inviolability of consular officers

Consular officers shall not be liable to arrest or detention pending trial, except in the case of a grave crime and pursuant to a decision by the competent judicial authority.

Espionage is a grave crime, punishable by up to 20 years imprisonment.

Article 43 Immunity from jurisdiction

Consular officers and consular employees shall not be amenable to the jurisdiction of the judicial or administrative authorities of the receiving State in respect of acts performed in the exercise of consular functions.

But espionage is, though unofficially accepted as common, not a legitimate consular function.

This is apparently the film of Motoki.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UZXntDLchs

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Espionage is a very serious crime in any jurisdiction, Russian judgement believe a crime is committed and the man to shamefully now leave Russia, I believe the Japanese foriegne ministry needs not to ask for any appology just recieve their little diplomat man back home, not to forget Japan can also accuse other country diplomats for any crimes one being espionage.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Fighto!Today 08:01 am JST

The only reason they didn't detain Motoki is because they had no hard evidence.

Is that not in itself a quiet concessions they have standards?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Wholly irrelevant whether he was spying or not, whether he was caught red handed or not, he is an accredited diplomatic representative and as such is immune to arrest.

His treatment would be unacceptable in an ordinary person and goes way, way beyond what is is acceptable for anyone falling under the Vienna convention.

russia has gone beyond all bounds of civilised behaviour, to compare them to the Nazi regime in Germany is no longer valid, they are worse. Even the Nazi’s accepted the diplomatic norms.

If russia deems it acceptable to arrest and detain diplomats then it is open season on their own diplomats around the world and they have no justification to complain.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Just expel one of spies in the Russian Embassy, This is the usual protocol.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Can't get much clearer than being caught in the act.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

The difference between Russia and the West, is that Russia doesn't need Spies embedded within the West, it simply has to listen to the Media within each Country.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Japanese government should worry about Japanese official getting trapped by the Honeypots

-4 ( +1 / -5 )

well he is not kind of japanese "Richard Sorge" anyway so will be not jailed or hanged...will send him back home...

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Russia is like a Banana Republic except without the bananas.

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

May I advice you catch up on current affairs a bit.

I've lived in Vladivostok for a couple of months. Russia is communist in every way of life, no matter what you read in your smartphone.

3 ( +11 / -8 )

Stupid acts bring stupid results..

Considering fascist Russia is thumbing their nose at all normal international conventions 

Fascist Russia, fascist Rusia, ña ña ña, lol !!..

-6 ( +1 / -7 )

Russia's foreign ministry said Tatsunori had been declared persona non grata and ordered to leave the country within 48 hours.

If you consider the length of that queue right now, this is a very serious punishment.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Nothing of significance. All diplomatic personnel are spies one way or another. That’s the main purpose of embassies everywhere and the diplomatic immunity system fir balancing it out. Only the seldom most obvious cases , the very upper tips of the icebergs, are then handled such loudly and with media attention. Of course he spied there, as well as all Russian embassy staff in Japan spies 24/7, or do you think they only promote borschtsch soup and matryoshka puppet sales?

3 ( +6 / -3 )

Another proof that communism is the enemy of the entire human race

Actually, modern Russia is a fascist nation, bordering on a dictatorship. They dropped the pretence of "Communism" in the early 90s. Even in their Communist days they had more reasonable and diplomatic leaders such as Gorbachev than today's despicable tyrant Mini-me.

5 ( +10 / -5 )

The Kremlin has repeatedly referred to Japan as a "hostile" country, a designation it shares with the U.S., EU countries and their Western allies

Another proof that communism is the enemy of the entire human race

-1 ( +10 / -11 )

Diplomats can not be arrested or detained.

Independent sovereign nations cannot be invaded or attacked. It is illegal.

I get what you are saying but the Russians have an embassy full of their own citizens there as diplomats the Japanese could start arresting if the Russians chose to violate international law and imprison one of Japan's diplomats in Russia.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

If you want to transfer secret information,put it on a burner phone,and send a Bluetooth files with the information and secretly transfer it without any trace

If you are using any RF transfer method, you are foolish when secrecy is required.

Bluetooth is terrible for security and using it always leaves a trace on the sending and receiving devices.

As soon as any file is transferred over a network of any sort, including peer-to-peer, there's a trace that can be followed. Just because airlines can't figure out who is posting lewd images from their iphone via bt or airdrop (that's peer-to-peer wifi), it doesn't mean everyone cannot. It is actually trivial with a tiny bit of knowledge. Slurping all RF traffic is possible today. A buddy has a project that's been doing it for nearly a decade. He's a former signals spook, now doing infosec work, but decided the legal ramifications were too gray, so he stopped advertising the project after a number of talks about it at world known security conferences. The impact of the tool was similar to the wall-of-sheep https://www.thesecurityblogger.com/what-is-the-wall-of-sheep-at-def-con-my-experience-as-a-speaker-volunteer-and-dj/ that completely changed google, facebook, twitter and almost every website in the world. His RF tool has changed how many organizations look at any RF-based networking.

Better to use extremely strong encryption, like gpg, then using a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography tool, add the gpg encrypted file to a video or image on the SD/microSD. Plain sight is probably best with 5 other microSD cards ... perhaps in a phone, just with the contacts to the phone disabled? IDK. I've thrown them into a single plastic case with camera equipment and vacation snapshots. One customs service copied everything over, but never asked me anything about the contents. It wasn't like they were gonna gain access to the gpg encrypted data, even if they saw it. After all, Mom's recipes are worth keeping secret!

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Mr Tatsunori got it light by being expelled from Russia, with the current situation he could have suffered much more serious consequences from the accusation, true or not.

Under international law as an accredited diplomat the host nation cannot try or imprison him. To do so would be an act of war. All the Russians can do is declare the diplomate "Persona non grata" and expel them from the country, which they did. Nations expel other nation's diplomats caught gathering intelligence fairly routinely.

Pretty much every nation sends their intelligence officers abroad as "diplomats" exactly for this reason. If they get caught spying they are protected from prosecution and being imprisoned.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Fighto: Normal international convention??? Where women are not woman were man can marry man, sex changing of babies is permitted and woke attitude can alianate a person opinion ( cancel culture ). You find this normal. I have a real hard time with this but is better than living in oppression.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Diplomatic privileges can only be waived by the country the diplomat belongs to.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Russia detains Japanese diplomat for seeking sensitive information

What kind of "sensitive info" he's got for Japan? Everybody already knows Putin is an idiot :)

3 ( +7 / -4 )

Diplomatic privileges and immunities guarantee that diplomatic agents or members of their immediate family:

May not be arrested or detained.

May not have their residences entered and searched.

May not be subpoenaed as witnesses.

May not be prosecuted.

6 ( +10 / -4 )

If this is true, good on Motoki-san, but next time do a better job and don't get caught!

-11 ( +1 / -12 )

Diplomats can not be arrested or detained.

Independent sovereign nations cannot be invaded or attacked. It is illegal.

10 ( +14 / -4 )

spy.will be sent back home.or extradited.

-2 ( +4 / -6 )

They're still at war with Japan. This should go ahead and declare 50 km safe zones are in the nuke plants.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

Diplomats can not be arrested or detained.

2 ( +10 / -8 )

If you want to transfer secret information,put it on a burner phone,and send a Bluetooth files with the information and secretly transfer it without any trace

-11 ( +3 / -14 )

Mr Motoki is a diplomat and he has diplomatic immunity from prosecution in another country. He couldn’t have suffered much more serious consequences. 

Considering fascist Russia is thumbing their nose at all normal international conventions , anything could have happened here. They are a rogue state. The only reason they didn't detain Motoki is because they had no hard evidence.

Japan should expel a number of fascist Russian diplomats in protest.

-1 ( +12 / -13 )

Asking about the effectiveness of sanctions is a secret in Russia? Sensitive much? What would have happened if he asked for the location of the nearest indoor toilet? Life in prison?

/s

When someone does work for you anywhere in the world, it is customary to pay them for that service, right? I'd be offended if someone asked me to work for free. It is just good manners being displayed.

-10 ( +3 / -13 )

BTY, Motoki is his surname, Tatsunori his given name.

Haven't you been posting here long enough to realize that it doesnt matter?

5 ( +15 / -10 )

Mr Motoki is a diplomat and he has diplomatic immunity from prosecution in another country. He couldn’t have suffered much more serious consequences. BTY, Motoki is his surname, Tatsunori his given name.

-2 ( +11 / -13 )

Mr Tatsunori got it light by being expelled from Russia, with the current situation he could have suffered much more serious consequences from the accusation, true or not.

7 ( +18 / -11 )

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