Right of extradition of British nationals to USA

The Sunday Times, 2 December

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2982640.ece

“A senior lawyer for the US Government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under US law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it.”

Although commonly believed that the US may only use “extraordinary rendition” as
permitted kidnap of suspected terrorists, a senior lawyer (Alun Jones QC) for the
American government has told an inquiry that due to good American case law relating back to the 1860s on “bounty hunting”, the Supreme Court may not rule international kidnapping illegal.

An extradition treaty exists between the UK and the US, but apparently (case law
between the US and Mexico) the UK may not have any legal remedy to an abduction of a
British national. The US Justice Department refused comment on this assertion that the US may freely kidnap British citizens.

By Oscar Tang

The Telegraph, 3 December

“The US government’s view emerged during an Appeal Court hearing involving Stanley Tollman, a former director of Chelsea football club and a friend of Baroness Thatcher.”

 Further details found at:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/03/wkidnap103.xml

The extradition laws which came into force in 2003 are said to be unfair and biased against UK citizens. The effect is (a) onesided – ie giving the US more power than the UK when extraditing criminals; and (b) can be used against anybody – not just suspected terrorists – and increasingly against white collar criminals.

There is a useful summary of the concerns and legal framework in The Lawyer (from 2006)

http://www.thelawyer.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=120584&d=386&h=388&f=387