File No. 4904.
Memorandum from the Japanese Embassy.
Washington, January 21, 1907.
When a foreign functionary or a foreign vessel comes into a harbor or roadstead of a country with a criminal or a fugitive from justice on board, for the purpose of extraditing him to a third power, the territorial sovereign, it is assumed, will, on general principles, have the right to demand that the person under arrest be set at liberty.
The department of justice of the Imperial Government has requested this embassy to ascertain what is the practice of the United States in reference to the transit through its territories of criminals and fugitives from justice on their way of extradition from one country to another.