Extradition from Britain to the United States—New Controversies

As the British High Court’s decision whether to approve the extradition of the NatWest 3 looms, fresh concerns about the fairness and appropriateness of Britain’s Extradition Act have been voiced by lawyers from “most of Britain’s 100 biggest companies.”^[1] This week, “[r]epresentatives of the CG100, created last year as a powerful group of general counsel from FTSE 100 companies, are to meet government officials amid growing awareness of the threat of extradition faced by directors for alleged offences such as fraud or cartel activity.”^[2]

At the heart of the controversy is the general sense that the extradition agreement, which was ostensibly created to make it easier to send alleged terrorists to the United States, is being used in “more than ’50 per cent’” of the time for alleged white-collar crime suspects; as Mark Harding, the chairman of the GC100, said, “I don’t think anybody expected [that]. We do believe that the current law goes too far in terms of allowing extradition without the establishment of a prima facie case, especially when the whole offence is committed here [in the UK].”^[3]

Assuredly, those concerns are quite valid. Would the same people, however, be voicing the same concerns if more alleged terrorists than CEOs were being shipped to the United States? After all, the presumption of innocence and the needs for due process protection are the same for all individuals. Merely labeling a person with “terrorist” does not, ipso facto, make that person a terrorist. Furthermore, given the relative paucity of federal convictions for alleged terrorist activities,^[4] the entire US-UK extradition framework should be reconsidered, not simply the aspect that applies to white-collar defendants.

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[1] Bob Sherwood et al., Lawyers to Push Extradition Concerns, Financial Times, Feb. 20, 2006.
[2] Id.
[3] Id.
[4] See, e.g., Dan Eggen et al., U.S. Campaign Produces Few Convictions on Terrorism Charges, Wash. Post, Jun. 12, 2005 (of 400 prosecutions, only 39 people “were convicted of crimes related to terrorism or national security”); Federal Judge Drops Detroit Terrorism Charges, Associated Press (via MSNBC.com), Sep. 2, 2004 (charges against 2 men dismissed after federal prosecutors admitted prosecutorial misconduct); Al-Arian’s Second Trial Not Definite Associated Press (via Miami Herald), Feb. 16, 2006 (a retrial for Sami Al-Arian may happen in April, if it happens at all; Mr. Al-Arian was acquitted of 8 terrorism counts and the jury could not come to agreement on the remaining counts in a case where the defense put on no case).