Not that I have a problem with white collar criminals being punished for their crimes - God knows they tend to do far more harm than your average street corner criminal whose environment has typically placed them in the business of stealing car radios. But when it comes to the law, especially precedents set with regards to extradition, there are reasons why extradition laws exist. Unfortunately, the United States doesn’t seem to think that the extradition process applies to those that they’re after…

“AMERICA has told Britain that it can “kidnap” British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States.

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

The admission will alarm the British business community after the case of the so-called NatWest Three, bankers who were extradited to America on fraud charges. More than a dozen other British executives, including senior managers at British Airways and BAE Systems, are under investigation by the US authorities and could face criminal charges in America.

Until now it was commonly assumed that US law permitted kidnapping only in the “extraordinary rendition” of terrorist suspects.

The American government has for the first time made it clear in a British court that the law applies to anyone, British or otherwise, suspected of a crime by Washington.

Legal experts confirmed this weekend that America viewed extradition as just one way of getting foreign suspects back to face trial. Rendition, or kidnapping, dates back to 19th-century bounty hunting and Washington believes it is still legitimate.

The US government’s view emerged during a hearing involving Stanley Tollman, a former director of Chelsea football club and a friend of Baroness Thatcher, and his wife Beatrice.

The Tollmans, who control the Red Carnation hotel group and are resident in London, are wanted in America for bank fraud and tax evasion. They have been fighting extradition through the British courts.

During a hearing last month Lord Justice Moses, one of the Court of Appeal judges, asked Alun Jones QC, representing the US government, about its treatment of Gavin, Tollman’s nephew. Gavin Tollman was the subject of an attempted abduction during a visit to Canada in 2005.

Jones replied that it was acceptable under American law to kidnap people if they were wanted for offences in America. “The United States does have a view about procuring people to its own shores which is not shared,” he said.

He said that if a person was kidnapped by the US authorities in another country and was brought back to face charges in America, no US court could rule that the abduction was illegal and free him: “If you kidnap a person outside the United States and you bring him there, the court has no jurisdiction to refuse — it goes back to bounty hunting days in the 1860s.”

Mr Justice Ouseley, a second judge, challenged Jones to be “honest about [his] position”.

Jones replied: “That is United States law.”

He cited the case of Humberto Alvarez Machain, a suspect who was abducted by the US government at his medical office in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1990. He was flown by Drug Enforcement Administration agents to Texas for criminal prosecution.

Although there was an extradition treaty in place between America and Mexico at the time — as there currently is between the United States and Britain — the Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that the Mexican had no legal remedy because of his abduction.”

Now, I’m not excusing criminal behaviour, but the laws in ones country of origin take precedence, and that includes laws pertaining to extradition. In effect, the United States is claiming that it has the right to kidnap an individual and Render them to the United States without facing any consequences for such actions because the practice dates back to when bounty hunting was a commonly employed method of ‘Rendering’ individuals to the United States in connection to a crime. That position, in effect, renders the laws of other nations moot.

Now, can you imagine the utter shit storm that would ensure if the British were to employ the SAS to snatch someone off the streets of New York because they were wanted for a crime in the UK? There is little doubt that the Americans would be doing back flips and that the American public would claim it entirely illegal.

Thankfully, not everyone is playing along…

“In 2005, Gavin Tollman, the head of Trafalgar Tours, a holiday company, had arrived in Toronto by plane when he was arrested by Canadian immigration authorities.

An American prosecutor, who had tried and failed to extradite him from Britain, persuaded Canadian officials to detain him. He wanted the Canadians to drive Tollman to the border to be handed over. Tollman was escorted in handcuffs from the aircraft in Toronto, taken to prison and held for 10 days.

A Canadian judge ordered his release, ruling that the US Justice Department had set a “sinister trap” and wrongly bypassed extradition rules. Tollman returned to Britain.”

That is not to say that, by way of an established and recognized extradition process, individuals like Tollman shouldn’t ultimately answer for their crimes elsewhere. But as is the case in both the UK and the US, every person has a right to the full measure of the legal system that governs their country of origin. Thus, if appeals, and whatever else, can stall the process, that is a part of the legal system that we, as citizens of nations that champion the rule of law, must adhere to – like it or not. What it does not mean is that such individuals can be snatched off of the street and flown to a foreign country without due process being exhausted in their country of origin. Attempts at combating extradition must ultimately be exhausted with regards to due process before any legal transfer to stand trial in a foreign court can occur.

What is ultimately disgraceful about this is that those that are wanted for crimes against humanity or war crimes are commonly not targeted because the practice would set such a dangerous precedent with regards to the culpability of individuals such as, for example, Donald Rumsfeld. In 2004, a lawsuit was filed against Rumsfeld in Germany by a coalition of human rights organizations and four Iraqis. In February of 2005, a German court rejected the suit. Germany, like Canada, has laws that provide the legal system universal jurisdiction with regards to the prosecution of war criminals, meaning that if an individual is arrests in connection with such crimes on Germany soil they can be tried under German laws pertaining to war crimes, no matter where those crimes took place. But what they do not have the right to do, were a suit to materialize, is kidnap Rumsfeld and transport him to Germany to stand trial. They would, under the law, have to apply for an extradition request, which would obviously, and vehemently, be denied.

In short, the world’s foremost power has the ability to usurp the law when it suits their purposes. And while the President waxes poetical about the fundamental need for other nations to adhere to the rule of law, his own government ignores that maxim. As we’re all aware, in cases of Extraordinary Rendition, no oversight exists. Thus, no international body, or anyone else for that matter, has the ability to monitor what the United States does in that regard – not the International Red Cross, not the UNHRC, no one. Thus, innocent people have been subjected to an entirely illegal process, such as Maher Arar, who, after successfully bringing to light the reality of his ordeal in Canada, continues to be completely shut down by US courts.

In Italy, an Italian judge ordered that warrants be served in June of 2005 for 13 CIA officers complicit in the kidnapping and Rendition of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr to Egypt. The United States has, of course, refused to allow the individuals to be extradited for prosecution. There’s little doubt that the Italian government was aware of the operation, which might be the reason why Italian intelligence has yet to try and kidnap the 13 operatives and fly them back to Italy to stand trial. Of course, were they to attempt it, a shit storm of unimaginable proportions would follow.

How’s that for irony?