Brazil's Superior Court of Justice, the country's second-highest court, ruled yesterday that Brazilian courts have jurisdiction to rule on a psychic's claim that he told the U.S. government in 2001 -- two years before the war even started -- exactly where it would be able to find Saddam Hussein.
Jucelino Nobrega da Luz is demanding that the U.S. pay him the $25 million reward that it offered in July 2003 when Saddam disappeared after the country was occupied. Da Luz says he had been sending the U.S. letters beginning in 2001 telling them that U.S. forces would be able to find Saddam hiding in a tiny hole near a farmhouse in Tikrit. Amazingly, that is exactly where they found him. Yet the U.S. stubbornly refuses to reply to letters from da Luz (and his attorneys) claiming the reward.
A lower court in da Luz's home state of Minas Gerais dismissed his case, saying that it had to be adjudicated in the United States. But the higher court ruled on Thursday that Brazilian courts did have jurisdiction. If those courts do eventually uphold the claim, it would still have to be sent on to the U.S. via diplomatic channels, where it will again be ignored.
If da Luz really wants to get some credit for his psychic powers, maybe he should help find the weapons of mass destruction, which still appear to be eluding more mundane search efforts.
Comments