Nigel Farage is a renowned European politician. He heads the UKPIT (United Kingdom Independent Party), holds a seat in the European Parliament and is a staunch euroskeptic. He criticizes the EU leadership, has a short-fused temperament and champions truly British values. Lately he has flung these qualities of his to protect his old buddy, businessman Christopher Tappin, who awaits his extradition to the USA that accuses him of arranging a criminal group for illegal supply of HAWK missiles batteries to Iran (transferring them through Netherlands and all the way from America).
Farage and Tappin know each other for almost forty years. This circumstance allows British politician to vouch for high morality of the 65-year-old businessman, who has seemingly befallen yet another victim to crafty American special services. Here’s the short version of his story.
In 2006 Christopher Tapping, now retired, CEO of Brooklands International Freight Services was hired by a front company Mercury Global Enterprises (MGE) for delivering 5 batteries (UPS for missile control units) per $5000 each to Netherlands. Farage mentioned that Tappin is a well-off businessman. It’s hard to imagine a respectable British entrepreneur falling for a suspicious deal worth of $25.000. Neither is the activity of American special services entirely transparent — they have started a complicated operation of many moves for a dubious result. The matter is that MGE itself was created by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) for this joint operation with the FBI in particular.
According to Tappin, MGE staff assured him that batteries are not designed for Hawk missile systems, but rather for a galvanic production line of some Dutch chemical company. They’ve also prepared all the necessary documents — it has only been required of Tappin to approve the deal and secure the delivery to Netherlands. Robert Gibson (another British citizen, who owns a Cypriot export company) and American citizen Robert Caldwell also took part in the deal. In 2007 charges were brought to all three of them. Without telling Tappin a thing, Gibson made his mind for a plea bargain and confessed (or lied) that he was buying batteries for his old-time customer in Tehran, who needed them precisely for the missile systems. Gibson now does his term in American prison, being sentenced to 2 years of imprisonment, while Caldwell was charged for arranging an illegal export and sentenced to 20 months.
At the same time Judge Cranston (El-Paso, Texas) issued a warrant for Tappin’s arrest, yet the legal system has actually gone into the high gear only 3 years later. Now 65-year-old Tapping, whose 63-year-old wife suffers from a “rare autoimmune disease” may face up to 35 years of imprisonment! Tappin’s defense was built around the fact that “federal agents have deceived him regarding the legitimacy of the deal and abused their authority”. Tappin has lost all the trials though, and now awaits the decision of Theresa May, British Home Secretary on his extradition to the USA. It is her, whom the famous British politician is also appealing to.
American anti-aircraft complex Hawk and its Iranian version Mersad now make up the foundation of Iranian anti-aircraft system. Recently an official ceremony took place in Iran — a batch of Shalamcha missiles for Mersad system were passed to a certain anti-aircraft base near Iran and some specs were disclosed. It was reported that a missile with a semi-active homing warhead weighs 636 kg; it can get the speed of 2.7 Mach, is capable of destroying target at the height of 60 meters to 18 kilometers and has the range of 40 kilometers. Those, willing to have a look at how it works, may do it here.
Current situation with the extradition of British subjects to its former colony — the United States of America — is of peculiar interest to our readers. It is well-known that Russian interaction with the United Kingdom in that particular regard is not going all too well. Russian mobs of all sorts — from a sheer murderer and terrorist Akhmed Zakayev to Boris Berzovsky, who was recently reduced to a status of some minor conman — feel themselves quite secure at the foggy Albion. Extradition Act 2003 did only come to legal force on Jan 1, 2004. All the extradition requests that followed were treated according to it. Until that officials were guided by the Extradition Act of 1989. Nevertheless, all the Commonwealth members and the subjects of British Crown are still regulated by the previous act (excluding offshore jurisdictions of Gibraltar and Jersey), whose authorities have changed the respective legislation in the due time. United Kingdom has extradition agreements with more 100 countries, which fall into two categories: countries that use the European Arrest Warrant (essentially, the EU members) and those that don’t (including the USA).
Extradition requests to the United Kingdom should be made to the Secretary of State. If the request is 'valid' the Secretary of State will issue a certificate and send the request to the court. The request is valid if:
a) It states that it is a request for a person accused or convicted of an offence and
b) It is made by an appropriate authority of the requesting territory such as a diplomatic or consular representative.
Some countries are not required to provide prima facie evidence in support of their request for extradition (including the USA and Russia). This is one of the flaws that the Extradition Act 2003 opponents (Farage being one of them) point out to. After the person has been arrested, he is brought before the court as soon as is practicable and the judge sets a date for the preliminary extradition hearing. If the judge decides to extradite the accused, he returns the case the Secretary of State again. Where a case is sent to the Secretary of State she must consider whether surrender is prohibited because:
1. the person could face the death penalty: This is an absolute prohibition unless the Secretary of State receives an adequate written assurance from the requesting state that the death penalty will not be imposed, or will not be carried out, if imposed
2. there are no speciality arrangements with the requesting country: The condition of “speciality” requires that the person must be dealt with in the requesting state only for the offences in respect of which the person is extradited (except in certain limited circumstances)
3. the person was earlier extradited to the UK: this might require the Secretary of State to obtain the consent of the earlier extraditing country, before the person can be extradited on to the requesting state.
If no contradictions to the Extradition Act 2003 and the Human Rights Act 1998 are revealed, the Secretary of State should make the decision or apply to the High Court for an extension of the decision date, of any length but usually of no more than two months.
New law has become the response to the 9/11 attacks, yet it’s somewhat ironical that not a single terrorist has ever been extradited under that act. British extradition cases are very rare and their analysis makes an impression of a confused and chaotic court practice.
For instance, British Pakistani expatriate Babar Ahmad. He is the longest serving remand prisoner (ie held awaiting trial) in modern UK history (7 years and counting). He is still awaiting the decision of the European Court of Human Rights as to whether he should be extradited to the US on terrorism charges. Ahmad was arrested on allegations that he was involved in Azzam.com, a website supporting Chechen and Taliban fighters that shut in 2002. On 30 November 2006, Ahmad lost his appeal at the High Court. On 4 June 2007, the House of Lords refused to grant him leave to appeal to them.
Ian Norris was the recently retired Chief Executive of UK engineering group Morgan Crucible when he was indicted in 2003 by a Philadelphia Grand Jury on multiple counts of price fixing and obstruction of justice. Norris was indicted on one count of price fixing, and three counts of obstruction of justice, in relation to the admitted fixing of prices of carbon products during the period 1989 to 2000.
Since price fixing was not a crime in the UK during this period, the Crown Prosecution Service, acting on behalf of the US Government in the extradition proceedings, translated the price fixing count into a UK equivalent offence of 'conspiracy to defraud'. In a bitter irony, it was Norris himself who had reported the company's cartel activity to the European Union, and his indictment in the US was the consequence of testimony given by two former employees who had been fired, and were themselves indicted. The US subsidiary had entered into a plea agreement with the US prosecutors in relation to its conduct, and several US employees had been granted immunity from prosecution in return for their co-operation. The Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that he could not be extradited on the price-fixing allegation, but remanded the case back to the lower court to decide whether the extradition could properly be brought just on the obstruction counts alone. Norris was extradited in March 2010, and invoked his Speedy Trial Act rights to ensure that the case was not drawn out. In July 2010 he was found guilty of one of the three counts of obstruction of justice, and was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
The more I researched the extradition cases featuring British citizens sent to the USA, the more solid connection between the impartial British Themis and its little American sister I discovered. Here is, for instance, the case of Gary McKinnon. Gary McKinnon, 45, is accused of hacking into Pentagon and US military computer systems in the aftermath of 9/11 and alleged to have caused damage amounting to £400,000. Gary McKinnon does not deny that he accessed US computer systems, which he did via a dial up connection from a bedroom in his flat in North London. He maintains that he was searching for evidence of UFOs and free energy sources. He also strongly denies that he caused any damage to US military computers, as alleged. Indeed, his hacking was apparently fairly low-level, and made possible only because the computers he accessed were not password-protected. He faces up to 70 years in prison if extradited and convicted. In CPS disclosure to the court in 2009 the CPS admitted that the U.S had not provided any evidence whatsoever of the alleged damage required to make Gary's offence an Extraditable offence. McKinnon is yet another extradition veteran.
Although indicted in 2002, his extradition, like that of the NatWest Three, was announced by the U.S in 2002, it was delayed and not requested from the U.K until the new extradition laws had come into force in 2004. In February 2011, Wikileaks published a US embassy cable that revealed that Prime Minister Gordon Brown had asked Barack Obama to allow McKinnon's case to be dealt with in the UK, a request that was turned down by the US. David Cameron publicly raised Gary's case with President Barack Obama during their first joint worldwide press conference in America and again during their second joint worldwide press conference in May 2011 where President Obama announced that it was a U.K decision which America would accept and respect. Gary's family was elated as President Obama had basically given the British Government the green light to refuse to extradite. His case is still hanging in the air, though. It seems that these decisions are actually made by politicians, rather than judges, and now extravagant Britt has a chance to stay at home, although it is unclear whether “at home” would mean — at large or in prison.
So Nigel Farage has all the grounds to worry for the lot of his friend, while the path of political influence over the British Ministry of Interior that he chosen, is surely the only right one. As for the provocative techniques of American special services, which deliberately set up citizens for criminal deals, it hardly requires any of my judgment.
No comments:
Post a Comment