[Infowarrior] - US says it has right to kidnap British citizens

[Richard Forno]

US says it has right to kidnap British citizens
David Leppard
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2982640.e
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AMERICA has told Britain that it can ³kidnap² 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 ³extraordinary rendition² 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 government¹s 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, Tollman¹s 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. ³The United States does have a
view about procuring people to its own shores which is not shared,² 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: ³If 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.²

Mr Justice Ouseley, a second judge, challenged Jones to be ³honest about
[his] position².

Jones replied: ³That is United States law.²

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.

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 ³sinister trap² and wrongly bypassed extradition rules. Tollman
returned to Britain.

Legal sources said that under traditional American justice, rendition meant
capturing wanted people abroad and bringing them to the United States. The
term ³extraordinary rendition² was coined in the 1990s for the kidnapping of
terror suspects from one foreign country to another for interrogation.

There was concern this weekend from Patrick Mercer, the Tory MP, who said:
³The very idea of kidnapping is repugnant to us and we must handle these
cases with extreme caution and a thorough understanding of the implications
in American law.²

Shami Chakrabarti, director of the human rights group Liberty, said: ³This
law may date back to bounty hunting days, but they should sort it out if
they claim to be a civilised nation.²

The US Justice Department declined to comment.

Additional reporting: Anna Mikhailova