Another extradition of a UK citizen to the US

This was on the BBC news last week. A dreadful situation and very difficult to understand how this can happen.

Celyn

I agree, as he was supposed to be being extradited this week.

Celyn

He has to report to Heathrow transport police at 9.30 tomorrow morning and US marshals will be waiting to escort him to a plane.

Snip from the article in the Catholic Times:

On arrival in El Paso he will be strip-searched, manacled and taken into custody. Mr Tappin, 65, will probably spend the next couple of years in a violent, gang-infested US prison for a crime he insists he did not commit and for which he will not have been tried in either Britain or America.

I very much hope he just doesn't turn up - but maybe that would make things worse.

Having read the full article, and all the comments, It appears we have no choice, Tappin has to be extradited. I do nor agree with the law but it is there and has to be obeyed.

Next time will be too late for Mr Tappin, unfortunately an immediate change in the law is needed now and that cannot happen.

I agree that are several extra dimensions to this case and there is also the wider question of whether the extradition treaty with the US is one sided.

There is the question of entrapment - if this was the case, do we accept that now in UK law ? How can a foreign government agency be allowed to operate such a 'sting' outside their own country?

Why not try Mr Tappin here; he is a UK citizen and his alleged offence took place in the UK not the US. I understood that extradition is about returning a person to the country where an offence took place. Like Abu Quatada being wanted in Jordan.

Actually he has quite a lot to fear if he is innocent. He is very unlikely to be allowed bail so will be shackled and sent to one of Texas' violent and unregulated prisons. He will be offered a guilty plea with a short sentence which he will probably accept rather than rot for years in prison whilst a case is put together in the meantime bankrupting himself to pay for a defence. If he goes to trial the maximum sentence is 35 years. For being set up.

A lot of other newspapers, and the BBC have covered this case. I only linked to the Catholic Times because it was interesting to see their take, and also because the article and the comments seem well-written.

Edited a typo

I feel that the US is the bully in the playground, demanding rights that are not properly its own, regarding the whole world as its own 'back yard'.

Does the UK really enjoy similar rights of extradition against US citizens who have done things that are not against their own laws but only ours, and not allowing their own courts to establish that side of any case?

It is indeed incorrect Celyn - he is being extradited to face prosecution in the US. There has been no trial in the UK.

Under the 2003 Act the US prosecution needs to provide only summary information that there is a case to answer in order to extradite a UK citizen, not proper evidence. The US on the other hand demands evidence before a US citizen is extradited to the UK to face trial.

The American motto "Never give a sucker an even break".

No fear of the ECHR legislating against the decision to extradite the Chairman of the Kent Golf Union then?

It's inevitable to draw comparisons between the Qatada case and this one. I'd say a person is just as likely to be tortured by the Americans as by the Jordanians. More so, probably.