Extradition treaty with th US

[LazyLob]

Sorry Yanks but I don't think its fair.

NatWest 3 witness found dead in East London
By Philippe Naughton and Jenny Percival

A senior British banker who was grilled by the FBI as a potential witness in the case of three colleagues facing extradition to the United States has been found dead in a park near his home in East London.

News of the man's death, an apparent suicide, emerged as the Commons began an emergency debate into the decision to extradite the "NatWest Three", who deny fraud over the collapse of the energy giant Enron five years ago.

Sky News named the dead man as Neil Coulbeck, 53, and said that he was among those grilled by the FBI as part of the Enron investigation. Mr Coulbeck is thought to be a former head of financial markets at the Royal Bank of Scotland, which owns NatWest.

David Bermingham, one of the three facing extradition, had said earlier that he did not know the identity of the dead man, but added: "The only thing we do know is that one chap who was very close to us was very aggressively interviewed by the FBI and was quite traumatised by the entire experience."

He added: "One day when this is all over I’m going to be coming home to my wife and children and some poor guy is not and my heart goes out to his wife and family."

The Metropolitan Police refused to comment beyond a statement confirming that they were investigating after a member of the public, believed to be a dog-walker, discovered a man's body in parkland close to Newgate Street in Woodford.

"A member of the public discovered the man and contacted police. The male was found on the ground," the Met said.

"The death is being treated as unexplained at this early stage. Officers from the Homicide and Serious Crime Command are investigating due to their resources and expertise."

Scotland Yard added that local police were contacted last Thursday about a man missing from his home in Woodford Green. "It is not yet established if the deceased is connected to this report. We believe they know the identity of the man but detailed inquiries are ongoing to confirm this."

The NatWest Three are accused of taking part in a multi-million pound fraud connected to the Enron collapse. All three - Mr Bermingham, Gary Mulgrew and Giles Darby - have denied any wrongdoing but fear they will be refused bail by the American courts, which could see them locked up in a maximum security jail for up to two years before their trial starts.

At Prime Minister's Questions today, however, Tony Blair said that he had been informed that US prosecutors would not oppose conditional bail for the three. Mr Blair insisted that there was no imbalance in extradition arrangements between the UK and the US and rejected demands from the Liberal Democrats to renegotiate the Extradition Act 2003.

Opening the subsequent emergency Commons debate, Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem home affairs spokesman, said that Mr Blair's claims were "simply and totally incorrect". He said that the Prime Minister had "short-changed British citizens" by signing a "lopsided" extradition treaty with the US.

Peers voted last night to suspend the extradition arrangements with the US until the American Senate has signed its side of the deal, although it was in a purely symbolic act of defiance since it will not affect the men's extradition.

Mr Bermingham, Mr Mulgrew and Mr Darby are expected to board a flight to the US tomorrow to face trial over the alleged fraud.

They have challenged the legality of their extradition to the US, which makes use of a fast-track treaty that was originally intended for terrorism suspects.

The treaty, ratified by the UK but not Washington, means US authorities do not have to prove there is a case to answer for extradition to be granted, even though prima facie evidence is still required to send US citizens to Britain. The three men want to be tried in England, where the alleged offences took place.

Baroness Scotland, a Home Office minister, is expected to arrive tonight in Washington where she will meet Congressional leaders and Alberto Gonzales, the US Attorney-General, to push for the treaty's ratification.

[Greek soldier]

I am afraid this is just the beginning.

The NatWest Three are accused of taking part in a multi-million pound fraud connected to the Enron collapse. All three - Mr Bermingham, Gary Mulgrew and Giles Darby - have denied any wrongdoing but fear they will be refused bail by the American courts, which could see them locked up in a maximum security jail for up to two years before their trial starts.

Can someone explain me this? I've only heard such thing for prior-to-trial terrorists.

[weatherman]

Welcome to fascist Britain.

Extradition without presentation of evidence is grossly unfair. Whatever happened to presumed innocent?

Just another nail in the coffin of the British people's freedoms.

Interestingly, from today's Daily Telegraph:


On the final day of my three-year posting in Washington, as the family headed for Dulles airport and home, I could not get these words out of my mind: he's a US citizen.

"He" was my three-month-old son, dozing in my wife's arms as we purred along the blissfully empty road dedicated solely to airport traffic. And indeed he was, and is, a US citizen as well as a Brit. Born in Washington's functionally comfortable Sibley Memorial Hospital, Julius now has two passports, one coloured US blue, one EU red. Now. But then, my growing anxiety as Dulles came closer was that he had only the red one.

We had not thought to get him an American passport yet. With all the palaver of packing up our much-loved home of three years and coming back to Britain, it wasn't high on the list of priorities. When you think about immigration and nationality matters, the place you are going to is surely the bother, not the place you are leaving.

But two nights before we left America, a friend jokingly told me the story of a BBC correspondent who had also bred a little Anglo-Yank in Washington. Arriving at the airport for their departure at the end of his posting, the immigration officer had looked at the baby's British passport.

"He was born in Washington?" the immigration officer had asked. "Yes, that's right," the proud father replied. "So, where's his US passport? He can't go through immigration without his passport." The little red book meant nothing. Without that little blue book, the BBC baby could not leave the country. The whole family had to go back to DC, miss their flight and wait three days to get the vital document.

The philosophy behind the immigration officer's position was as follows: American citizens are more important than anyone else; these Brits are trying to take an American citizen out of the country without his passport, meaning that he might not be able to exercise his rights as an American citizen outside the US. In refusing the child exit, the officer was protecting his citizen's rights.

As we pulled up outside the strangely beautiful, curved-roof terminal building at Dulles, I wondered if we were about to suffer the same fate. As it was, Julius's passport got only the most cursory of glances and we were waved through. When, a few weeks later, we went to get his American passport from the US embassy in Grosvenor Square, we did get a firm ticking-off along the lines of having committed some kind of felony by ripping him from his native country with invalid documentation.

Citizenship means an awful lot to Americans, at least in theory. American police officers may beat up American citizens as frequently and as enthusiastically as they do illegal immigrants. The FBI might tap their phones with reckless abandon. But put them up against non-Americans, and the US citizens' rights triumph every time. There are no Americans behind the wire in Guantanamo Bay.

For the ancient Romans, Romanitas was everything. The stringency with which America has insisted on its right to uphold Americanitas wherever it might roam is equally powerful and it has had some odd side effects. In the Second World War, the US government insisted that the million or more GIs who passed through Britain should be subject solely to American military justice. This led to the anomaly of three men, all black, being hanged for rape in Shepton Mallet prison, Somerset, even though rape was not a capital crime in Britain.

Nothing is more important in the eyes of the American law than upholding the rights of the American citizen. It is a republic made up of citizens. It may offer lip service to international organisations and treaties: both the League of Nations and the United Nations were the creatures of idealistic American presidents (Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt respectively). But the rights of the individual American above any foreign law or power have a conceptual importance that we in Britain find very difficult to comprehend.

Can the subjects of a monarch, however much that monarchy is hidebound by constitutional law, ever have quite as much of a sense of common purpose, or even ownership, in dealings with their state as do the citizens of a republic? I do not think so.

Yet the fact that American law so zealously protects its citizenry against affront is exactly why we should not let the NatWest Three be extradited to Houston. It may well, as Joshua Rozenberg pointed out last week, cause diplomatic repercussions if the Home Secretary were simply to refuse to extradite the three on the grounds that we were not sure that it was just. But Americans would understand.

The stumbling block for realisation of the 2003 extradition treaty between the two countries is the US Senate, as pragmatic and hard-headed a body as you would find anywhere in the world, and it would know precisely what the reasoning behind such a volte-face would be. The White House might rail and scream for a while but, behind closed doors, it would see that some matters rise above the short-term needs of international treaties (especially when US lawyers know full well that this was not the kind of crime for which these extraordinary arrangements were dreamed up).

And the American people, those of them who would even bother to express an opinion, could be persuaded to step into the shoes of those three men and their families and say, yes, the Brits do have a right to put their own people first.

From top to bottom, America would understand if we felt there was something fundamentally wrong in sending these men into a foreign jurisdiction, to stand before a jury that could have a far less neutral set of preconceptions about their dealings with Enron than they would meet in a British courtroom. Americans might feel temporarily shunned by their most intimate international friend, but they would respect us in the morning.

[LazyLob]

I am afraid this is just the beginning.



Can someone explain me this? I've only heard such thing for prior-to-trial terrorists.


Exactly, this treaty was envisioned only for terror suspects.

[a_very_ex_STAB]

Just think how many IRA terrorists we could get our hands on if we had a properly functioning bilateral extradition treaty with the USA.

The present arrangement is unacceptable though.

[Geezah]

Just think how many IRA terrorists we could get our hands on if we had a properly functioning bilateral extradition treaty with the USA.

The present arrangement is unacceptable though.

I have to agree with the comment above, the love should be shared equally.

[Geezah]

I am afraid this is just the beginning.



Can someone explain me this? I've only heard such thing for prior-to-trial terrorists.

I think they would be viewed as high risk suspects, chance they could do a runner. No different than being on remand in the UK, but I'm not sure that time served is applied to your overall sentence State Side. I know there was a big cock up in the UK a few years back and a bunch of crims got a nice pay out due to time served not being applied to their overall sentence.

[Royal]

I think they would be viewed as high risk suspects, chance they could do a runner. No different than being on remand in the UK.

If they were going to 'do a runner' they'd have done it weeks ago - they're not and never have been on remand. Personally if I was them, I'd be on Copacabana beach by now, I've certainly got no faith in the US "justice" system that treats murdering scum from the IRA and their NORAID appologists as "freedom fighters" and doesn't have the balls to sign a reciprocal extradition treaty with the greatest ally.

[a_very_ex_STAB]

I think they would be viewed as high risk suspects, chance they could do a runner. No different than being on remand in the UK, but I'm not sure that time served is applied to your overall sentence State Side. I know there was a big cock up in the UK a few years back and a bunch of crims got a nice pay out due to time served not being applied to their overall sentence.

The key issue seems to be that the US DoJ is accusing them of a crime in the UK against a UK company which has made no complaint about a crime being committed! It's hard to see why the US DoJ is interested really - you would think they would have more important things to do.

[Greek soldier]

Just think how many IRA terrorists we could get our hands on if we had a properly functioning bilateral extradition treaty with the USA.

The present arrangement is unacceptable though.

I still wonder why the US still hasn't sent IRA terrorists to the UK. Once a History instructor told me that "the Irish-Americans still consider IRA freedom movement.".

Is it the US Administration or the Irish-American Community that doesn't want extradition to the UK?

BTW, thanx LazyLob for the explanation. :)

[LazyLob]

If they were going to 'do a runner' they'd have done it weeks ago - they're not and never have been on remand. Personally if I was them, I'd be on Copacabana beach by now, I've certainly got no faith in the US "justice" system that treats murdering scum from the IRA and their NORAID appologists as "freedom fighters" and doesn't have the balls to sign a reciprocal extradition treaty with the greatest ally.


Quoted for truth.

[a_very_ex_STAB]

I still wonder why the US still hasn't been sent to the UK. Once a History instructor told me that "the Irish-Americans still consider IRA freedom movement.".

Is it the US Administration or the Irish-American Community that doesn't want extradition to the UK?

BTW, thanx LazyLob for the explanation. :)
AFAIK so-called Irish American congressmen have been blocking ratification of the treaty on their side in order to prevent IRA terrorists being extradited to the UK to stand trial for their crimes.

[welshmann]

intresting thread,this does seem to be 1 sided,does this treaty apply to just terrorists?seen on the news the other day about the hacker being extradited to the US even though he did it from his home in the UK.

[Royal]

does this treaty apply to just terrorists?

Clearly not as the US is getting 3 possible fraudsters and half the IRA are swigging pina coladas in California or Boston (it may be Jamiesons - there, what with the weather and all).

[a_very_ex_STAB]

intresting thread,this does seem to be 1 sided,does this treaty apply to just terrorists?seen on the news the other day about the hacker being extradited to the US even though he did it from his home in the UK.

Yeah that hacker just seems to be a harmless moonbat with an obsession about UFOs. I really can't see the point in him spending the rest of his life in jail in the US. I'm sure there are better ways for US tax payers money to be spent.

[Geezah]

If they were going to 'do a runner' they'd have done it weeks ago - they're not and never have been on remand. Personally if I was them, I'd be on Copacabana beach by now, I've certainly got no faith in the US "justice" system that treats murdering scum from the IRA and their NORAID appologists as "freedom fighters" and doesn't have the balls to sign a reciprocal extradition treaty with the greatest ally.

I may have misread the quoted reference, but I thought the question was whether of not they would be refused bail Stateside not in the UK, and if extradited to the US they may be refused bail because of them being a high risk suspect(IMHO)?

And I have to agree, I'm pretty sure there would be a nice spot in the Med with my name on it, if I were in their shoes.

Having said that, I have allot more faith in the legal system here(for domestic crimes) over the Lords that sit on the benches that have lost all connection with the real world.

[Geezah]

The key issue seems to be that the US DoJ is accusing them of a crime in the UK against a UK company which has made no complaint about a crime being committed! It's hard to see why the US DoJ is interested really - you would think they would have more important things to do.

Yeah, like going after Hooters because they say the organisation is sexist, due to them lacking a number of men that want to don tight t-shirts:(

[Royal]

I may have misread the quoted reference, but I thought the question was whether of not they would be refused bail Stateside not in the UK, and if extradited to the US they may be refused bail because of them being a high risk suspect(IMHO)?

No you read right - my point is that if they were considered a low enough risk to run free in their own country, surely they are a low risk in the US - a foreign country?

[Geezah]

Yeah that hacker just seems to be a harmless moonbat with an obsession about UFOs. I really can't see the point in him spending the rest of his life in jail in the US. I'm sure there are better ways for US tax payers money to be spent.

He did hack into a Guberment computer, it wasn't as if he hacked our company computer, which in my mind would be harmless.

[welshmann]

well seems like he got a bit of talent with computers,his punishment should be to work for the inland rev,cause they not got a clue.

[Geezah]

No you read right - my point is that if they were considered a low enough risk to run free in their own country, surely they are a low risk in the US - a foreign country?

I dunno, I think I would be considered a high risk suspect if arrested because of my ability to flee to the UK, the point is, I would consider them to be more of a risk to flee than a Seppo, but's that me and I'm not a lawyer;)

I just phoned my buddy who is licensed to practice law in Ohio, he said that their passports would be confiscated and either they would be granted excessivley high bail or no bail at all because of the chance of them fleeing back to their country.

[Royal]

I just phoned my buddy who is licensed to practice law in Ohio, he said that their passports would be confiscated and either they would be granted excessivley high bail or no bail at all because of the chance of them fleeing back to their country.

The Attorney General here announced that they will be getting bail this afternoon. But he's a lying arrselicking bliarite scumbag - so I guess we'll see.

[Geezah]

The Attorney General here announced that they will be getting bail this afternoon. But he's a lying arrselicking bliarite scumbag - so I guess we'll see.

I hope so, Federal Prison is not a place I would want to visit, especially for 2yrs. If they get bail, I'd be interested $ for each.

[annihilation]

Just think how many IRA terrorists we could get our hands on if we had a properly functioning bilateral extradition treaty with the USA.

The present arrangement is unacceptable though.

I have to agree too. Needs to be equally enforced and shared. I am willing to give britian all the IRA guys they want for those 3 guys. :) Anyone that was involved with Enron needs to go to jail (those that actually tried to fraud the system).

[dacanadianbomb]

Absolutely un-Fing-believable.
Using a terrorism related law to get possible White collar criminals extradited.
The British government is giving the judicial power to put on trial their citizens for crimes supposedly committed in the UK ? Or am I missing something important here ?
Nice, I'll make sure never to move to England.
But knowing my luck the Canadians probably would do the same.

[a_very_ex_STAB]

He did hack into a Guberment computer, it wasn't as if he hacked our company computer, which in my mind would be harmless.

Well apparently it was absurdly easy for him to do so. Maybe the US DoD should have hired some competent network admins. They seem to have made some over the top claims for the cost of repairing alleged damage - but then I guess defence contracts always get gold plated!

[Geezah]

Prime Minister Tony Blair told the House of Commons that US prosecutors would not oppose bail if appropriate conditions were met.

But the men's UK solicitor, Mark Spragg, said it looked unlikely the men would get "meaningful bail".

"The US prosecutors are currently suggesting they may get bail but only to live in the immediate Houston area.

"That won't be satisfactory at all because they're going have to put up all their money and property as collateral even to get that sort of bail.


Link (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5175058.stm)

To be honest, I doubt if bail is set, if it is it will be a stupid amount of dosh.