I just knew last night’s garbled post wasn’t going to get the thing across. The thing is, Gary McKinnon has considerable charm, his story is engaging and a bit endearing, and he has compelling personal issues. But this case is bigger and meaner than all that. The treaty he is being extradited under, basically it makes ID cards – it even makes Margaret Thatcher’s poll tax - look like a teddy bears’ picnic. Because (aside from the several legal rulings which have said it would be perfectly possible under European law for the Home Secretary to overrule it) it technically signs away the UK government’s rights to protect its own citizens.
Here is some context from the very-serious-indeed statewatch.org – “monitoring the state and civil liberties in Europe”:
This Special Report is also available in “pdf” format to download: Analysis no 18
On 31 March, David Blunkett, UK Home Secretary, signed an Extradition Treaty on behalf of the UK with his United States counterpart, Attorney General Tom Ashcroft, ostensibly bringing the US into line with procedures between European countries. The UK parliament was not consulted at all and the text was not public available until the end of May. The only justification given for the delay was “administrative reasons”, though these did not hold-up scrutiny by the US senate, which began almost immediately.
The UK-US Treaty has three main effects:
- (1) it removes the requirement on the US to provide prima facie evidence when requesting the extradition of people from the UK but maintains the requirement on the UK to satisfy the “probable cause” requirement in the US when seeking the extradition of US nationals;
- (2) it removes or restricts key protections currently open to suspects and defendants;
- (3) it implements the EU-US Treaty on extradition, signed in Washington on 25 June 2003, but far exceeds the provisions in this agreement.
An analysis of the new UK-US Treaty – which will replace the 1972 UK-US Treaty – follows below, together with a number of relevant cases and issues that raise serious concern about the new agreement (and those between the EU and US).
Ben Hayes of Statewatch comments:
“Under the new treaty, the allegations of the US government will be enough to secure the extradition of people from the UK. However, if the UK wants to extradite someone from the US, evidence to the standard of a “reasonable” demonstration of guilt will still be required.
No other EU countries would accept this US demand, either politically or constitutionally. Yet the UK government not only acquiesced, but did so taking advantage of arcane legislative powers to see the treaty signed and implemented without any parliamentary debate or scrutiny.
Guantanamo Bay, the failed extradition of Lofti Raissi and US contempt for the International Criminal Court make this decision to remove relevant UK safeguards all the more alarming”
There is more, more, much more. Download the pdf or click the link at the top.
And two more pertinent points, from Suzanne Moore:
1. that the only people who can’t be extradited under this treaty are the terrorists – because they’ll be facing the death penalty in the Us, and that is the only absolute bar to extradition.
2. that this might be a week in which the government would want to establish that they’re not at America’s beck & call!
2 Comments
November 27, 2009 at 11:33 pm
Lord preserve us from those we elect to serve us.
November 28, 2009 at 12:08 pm
This is an ongoing source of shame at the personal and political level. If this absurd agreement – which proves, if proof were needed, that a friendship based on inequality is a very ’special’ friendship indeed – hadn’t been made in the first place, Gary McKinnon wouldn’t need protecting. And it’s absolute nonsense to suggest that the treaty brings the US-UK into line with conditions existing among European countries. Just tell that to the Italian terrorists holed up in France under the so-called Mitterand doctrine. What it probably does reflect is a tendency for most European countries to roll over and expose their bellies when asked to do so by the US, without any chance of the gesture being reciprocated, as we saw in the Cermis disaster a few years ago (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalese_cable-car_disaster).
In the meantime, God help McKinnon. And a reluctant round of applause for the Daily Mail…