The extradition of a man accused of killing a woman in Manhattan and fleeing to Arizona, where he was later arrested on charges related to other serious crimes, set off a furious confrontation this week between two prominent local prosecutors.
It began Wednesday when Rachel Mitchell, the Republican county attorney for Maricopa County, Ariz., said at a news conference that she would not send the man back to New York to face murder charges. The reason, she said, was that Alvin L. Bragg, Manhattan’s Democratic district attorney, could not be trusted to keep the man behind bars. Mr. Bragg, she said, is too lenient on “violent criminals.”
The case was swiftly swept up into national politics, where both prosecutors have played major roles, prompting a volley of bitter cross-country exchanges.
In a radio interview Thursday, Ms. Mitchell criticized Mr. Bragg’s handling of a case involving seven migrants arrested in New York City and charged with assaulting two police officers in Times Square last month. Four were initially released before appearing in court. All seven are now in jail.
Ms. Mitchell claimed that the four suspects who were initially released had fled to Arizona and were picked up in her county.
When asked whether she believed New York would release Mr. Almansoori, Ms. Mitchell said: “I would have assumed that they wouldn’t let illegal immigrants who attack police go, but they did.”
