City bankers lose extradition appeal

[Francois Cellier]

From the Guardian

City bankers lose extradition appeal
Mark Tran
Tuesday February 21, 2006


Three British bankers today face extradition to the US over fraud charges in connection with the Enron scandal after losing a high court battle.

The former NatWest executives David Bermingham, Gary Mulgrew and Giles Darby failed in their appeal to challenge the legality of the extradition orders made by a Bow Street district judge and confirmed by the home secretary, Charles Clarke.

Mr Bermingham said the British government had failed in its first duty, which he said was to protect its citizens, and the three were being used as "political currency" to "curry favour" with another government.

"This case is going to have a profound impact, not just on us, but many, many people, some who are already in the system," he said.

He added: "I can honestly say for the first time in my life today: I'm ashamed to be British."

The case has sparked widespread anger among the British business community over the perceived unfairness of the government's 2003 Extradition Act.

Mr Bermingham's MP, Boris Johnson, said there was "a serious imbalance and asymmetry" in the UK's extradition arrangements with the US.

He told BBC Radio 4's World at One: "They [the US] can, under the 2003 Extradition Act, Hoover over to America, as if by some electromagnetic power, people against whom they are not obliged to produce any prima facie evidence - whereas we have absolutely no such corresponding right to extradite to Britain suspects that we want to."

The three men, all British citizens, are accused of defrauding Greenwich NatWest, a subsidiary of British parent company NatWest, of some $7.3m (£4.2m).

US prosecutors allege that the men advised NatWest in 2000 to sell part of an Enron business it owned for less than the stake it was worth. They then left NatWest, bought into the firm themselves and sold it for a much higher price, pocketing about $2.7m each in the process.

The deal was allegedly carried out with the help of top Enron executives, including the former chief financial officer Andrew Fastow.

Lawyers for the NatWest trio fought the extradition on two fronts. They argued, first, that the Serious Fraud Office, not the US, should investigate the case and that any trial should take place in the UK. Second, they said the offences were not extradition offences and that putting them on trial in the US would be unjust and incompatible with European and UK human rights law.

But Lord Justice Laws and Mr Justice Ouseley dismissed both challenges.

The employers' organisation, the CBI, has accused the government and the US of abusing anti-terrorism legislation to extradite British executives to America.

Under the 2003 law, the US does not need to put a prima facie case before a judge in a British court, and is instead able to extradite suspects to America and keep them on remand before a trial. By contrast, US citizens cannot yet be extradited to Britain in a similar way.

The Home Office, however, pointed out that no one could be extradited unless sufficient information to justify arrest pending extradition was presented to a judge.

The US government argued that, even though a company incorporated in the UK was the target of the alleged illegal conduct, part of the fraud occurred in the US.

US lawyers described the alleged offence as a classic transnational crime, with some of the conduct occuring in the UK, some in the US and some in the Cayman Islands tax haven.

Mr Bermingham has said of today's case: "The stakes could not be higher. If we lose, the Trojan horse will have been safely delivered into the City. In matters of criminal justice, we would have become the 51st state of America."

Several other high-profile cases were awaiting today's decision, although the case could yet go to the House of Lords.

Enron collapsed in 2001 after it emerged that it had inflated its profits and filed false accounts to hide debts.

Enron's founder, Kenneth Lay, and the former chief executive Jeffrey Skilling are currently on trial in Houston, Texas, charged with several counts of fraud and conspiracy. If convicted, they could spend the rest of their lives in jail.

[Pathetic]

good... Now we need to start putting them in max security prisons and not country clubs.

White color crime is not better then robbery or burglary anyway.

[Francois Cellier]

Originally Posted by Pathetic

White color crime is not better then robbery or burglary anyway.

I have no problems at all with "white color crime" being prosecuted - far from it, in fact.

What I do have problems with is an agreement that allows the U.K. to extradite its own citizen to the U.S., especially when it is a one-sided agreement, but even if it were not a one-sided agreement.

What should have happened is that the U.S. should be allowed to sue in a British court and have the defendants judged in accordance with British laws.

[Zan de Man]

Precisely. This law allows British citizens to be extradited to the US without probable cause. The fact that the US Constitution prevents a reciprocal arrangement tells you all you need to know about this illiberal agreement.

[Pathetic]

without probable cause??

[Zan de Man]

That's what I said.

[Francois Cellier]

The situation is even more serious than that.

1. The extradition is based upon a secret agreement between the UK and US Governments signed in 2003 under the pretext of fighting the "war on terror."
   
2. The agreement is one-sided, because the US Constitution wouldn't allow for the extradition of US citizen.
   
3. Now that the agreement is in place, it is being applied also to cases that have absolutely nothing to do with the "war on terror."
   
4. The defendants are said to have defrauded a Scottish company of money by telling them to sell their Enron stock below value, then buying that stock for themselves to sell it a bit later (still prior to Enron's collapse) for big profit.
   
5. Hence if the defendants have committed a crime, it was a crime, committed in the UK, against a UK company.
   
6. The US State Department attempts to extend US jurisdiction to everywhere in the world, while at the same time, applying pressure to make other nations sign agreements that protect US citizen from being prosecuted for a crime committed outside the US by being taken to any court outside the US. Instead, they should be "sent home" to face justice in the US.