[NYTr] UK Minister begs US to honour extradition treaty

[nytr at olm.blythe-systems.com]

sent by Simon McGuinness

[The extradition treaty was rushed through the UK Parliament in 4 days,
yet two-and-a-half years later the US cannot find legislative time to
discuss it in Congress.  It is beginning to look like an act of
asymmetric warfare.  The UK minister was pathetic on TV last night doing
everything she could not to be seen to be begging the Bush
administration to find parliamentary time to pass the necessary
legislation to allow the US to extradite people wanted in the UK without
evidence of guilt.  It is lovely to see worms squirm, especially when
their discomfort is caused by George W Bush. -S.McG]

The Independent - 11 July 2006 
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article1171422.ece


Minister asks US to honour extradition treaty 

By Andy McSmith 

US senators will hear a personal plea from a Home Office minister this
week to save the British Government from further humiliation by dropping
their opposition to a US-UK extradition treaty. 

Baroness Scotland of Asthal will fly to Washington on Thursday - the
same day that the three British bankers are due to board a plane in the
custody of US marshals to face trial on fraud charges under a treaty
that the US Senate is refusing to ratify.

David Bermingham, Gary Mulgrew and Giles Darby, former executives of
NatWest, have been accused in the US of defrauding the bank of £4m by
advising it to sell part of Enron for less than its real value. The
three men left NatWest, bought the Enron business, and sold it on, for a
profit of £1.4m each. The trio have denied any criminal activity and
have insisted that if there is a case against them, it should be tried
in a British court, but their appeal was rejected in the High Court.

The case of the NatWest Three has caused an outcry in the UK, because it
is seen as another example of Tony Blair giving in to US pressure and
getting nothing in return. The Home Secretary, John Reid, has told Lady
Scotland to plead with the Senators to drop their opposition .

A Downing Street spokesman said "discussions" were under way to try to
ensure that the three men would be treated in the same way as US
citizens when they make an application. They want to be allowed to
return to Britain to prepare their defence, but there are fears that the
court could treat them as foreign fugitives and jail them unless they
can raise a $1m bond.

The extradition, without evidence being produced in any British court,
was made possible by a treaty signed between the US and the UK in March
2003, the same month that Tony Blair joined George Bush in the war
against Iraq. In December 2003, Lady Scotland assured a Lords committee:
"We anticipate that the treaty will be put before the Senate early in
the new year and approved shortly thereafter."

The Government's embarrassment could be increased today if the House of
Lords votes for a Liberal Democrat amendment that would go back to the
pre-2003 arrangement, compelling the US to produce evidence before
British citizens can be extradited.

"The Government ...should never have agreed to abolish the need for
evidence to be produced when the American government seeks extradition,
while still leaving it necessary for evidence to be produced when
extraditing the other way," the Liberal Democrat shadow Lord Chancellor,
Lord Goodhart, said.