The UK/US Extradition Treaty
This article is reproduced from the International Accountant. Issue 42. July 2008. The words of the article speak for themselves ....
To quote Ben Hayes of Statewatch
"Under the new treaty, the allegations of the US government will be enough to secure the extradition of people from the UK. However, if the UK wants to extradite someone from the US, evidence to the standard of a "reasonable" demonstration of guilt will still be required.
No other EU countries would accept this US demand, either politically or constitutionally. Yet the UK government not only acquiesced, but did so taking advantage of arcane legislative powers to see the treaty signed and implemented without any parliamentary debate or scrutiny.
Read on for the full article
The AIA has been campaigning this
month to give British businessmen
the right to be tried in the UK, and
is calling for Britain’s withdrawal from the
controversial ‘one way’ extradition treaty
which has placed a number of UK businessmen
in a frightening position.
The Chief Executive of engineering firm
Morgan Crucible, Ian Norris, is one of the
latest British businessman to be involved in the
ongoing wrangle over the UK’s hugely unpopular
extradition treaty with the US. After the
prolonged dispute over the fate of the NatWest
Three, AIA believes that it is time for the
government to sort out this travesty of justice
once and for all. AIA Chief Executive Philip
Turnbull has described the Treaty as “unjust and
failing to protect the rights of British citizens.”
We are in a situation where the US does not
need to show that an accused British citizen
has a case to answer, yet the UK must present a
case that can be tested by the courts in order to
extradite an American.
Introduced following 9/11 in an attempt
to speed up the extradition of terrorists, the
2003 Extradition Treaty has been used by the
US Justice Department as a fast-track way of
extraditing British businessmen. Furthermore, it
has not been ratified by the US Congress and it
is unlikely that it ever will be as the agreement
limits human rights and is, therefore, deemed to
be contrary to the American constitution.
AIA has suggested that the treaty has
been misused to target alleged ‘white collar
criminals’ in the UK even where there is no
clear causal link with the US. For example,
the NatWest Three were extradited in 2006
following their alleged fraud activities
involving the bankrupt Enron even though
their alleged crime was not directly linked to
the collapse of the US energy company.
In the case of Ian Norris, there was blatant
injustice. Following the retirement of the Chief
Executive in 2002, he was accused of conspiring
to fix the price of carbon brushes as well as two
further charges to pervert the course of justice.
Even though price fixing was not a crime in the
UK before 2002, the US authorities pursued the
charges. In fact, Mr Norris was not given the
opportunity to defend the case against him, as
under the treaty, the US authorities are able
to set out the charges without supplying any
evidence.
AIA believes that the treaty is quite simply
bad for trade between the two countries. It
reflects negatively on business in the UK, whose
citizens deserve to receive the same protection
as US citizens from the treaty. This is an issue
that AIA has followed with growing incredulity
over the last five years.
In a recent meeting with David Blunkett, who
was home secretary at the time of the renewal
of the treaty, AIA was told that the NatWest
Three’s “guilty plea indicated that the claims
made that they should not be extradited were
somewhat wide of the mark.”
Guilt or innocence is not the issue here, it is
the fact that the treaty is being used to target
alleged white-collar crimes and that British
businessmen are not being given the right to be
tried by British courts.
Despite attempts to restrict the treaty
to alleged terrorist crimes, and an ongoing
campaign by a national newspaper to change
the treaty so that British executives are tried
in the UK for British offences, the government
has failed to rectify the problem of this one-
way treaty. As the House of Lords has upheld
Ian Norris’ long fight to avoid extradition, AIA
believes it is time for the government to address
the issue of the imbalance in the transatlantic
extradition procedure. If the US is not willing
to ratify its side of the agreement, then AIA
believes Britain should withdraw its compliance.
Now is the time for the British business
community to join forces and challenge this
unjust legislation.
Labels: business
