Peter Jackson Column
Jul 13 2006 By Peter Jackson, The Journal
Three British businessmen - the so-called NatWest Three - are about to be extradited to stand trial in the US to face charges relating to Enron, the collapsed energy company.
If extradited, they face up to two years in the Houston Federal Detention Centre before coming to trial.
It is alleged they defrauded NatWest by selling a division to Enron at less than the division's true value.
Although the alleged crime took place on these shores and the alleged victim was a British bank, no British legal authority is taking action against the men, presumably because there is insufficient evidence.
Evidence, however, does not seem to matter much in this case.
If the Americans have any against these men, they do not have to produce it, as the 2003 extradition treaty between the US and Britain relieves the US of the necessity of establishing a prima facie case.
Back in 2003, a couple of mitigating qualifications were meant to apply here. First, the treaty was only to be used for terrorist suspects and, second, the UK would get the same rights in extraditing US suspects.
The first has been ignored and the second is not happening, because the US Senate will not ratify the treaty.
This is because the powerful Irish-American lobby argues the treaty could be used to extradite IRA suspects back to the UK.
Quite apart from the fact that this Government has no interest extraditing those guilty of terrorism offences in Northern Ireland - whom it would then have to go all the trouble of immediately releasing - this situation reveals something profoundly annoying about Americans.
The US has had an ambiguous attitude towards terrorism for years.
The events of 9/11 made them reappraise that attitude and they came down heavily against "terrorism with a global reach", which is another way of saying "terrorism which might reach Americans".
Not only will this hypocrisy damage relations between our two countries, the case of the NatWest Three is likely to damage trade. Who would want to do business with the US and risk being extradited to some hell hole of a penitentiary for two years on the say-so of some overzealous and not-too-scrupulous law officer?
