One-time Brexit Secretary David Davis demands Mike Lynch's extradition to US be halted Ex-Cabinet minister David Davis has called for former Autonomy exec Mike Lynch's potential US extradition to be halted – at least until judgment in the lengthy UK civil case brought against him by HPE. Lynch and HPE have also spent £40m on his civil legal defence in the High Court, the MP for Haltemprice and Howden told …
He was undermined by Theresa May. Not entirely his fault. Reports from his team said that she would undermine him and make demands for things that he was in charge of constantly. This seems to fit with her ultimately terrible bill, which was supposed to please everyone (Remainers and Brexiteers), but actually pleased no one, and led to her departure.
He was a good guy till he got involved with Brexit
No he wasn't. He stood up for privacy and against some of the more extreme anti-terrorist legislation but other than that he was a bog-standard career-minded Tory MP, voting to make the poor poorer and the rich richer. He was always anti-European and anti-internationalist; he never 'got involved with Brexit' but was there right from the start. The fact that he constantly talked obvious bollocks about the unicorn benefits of Brexit was what got him acclaimed as 'thick as mince', the fitting highlight of a blinkered self-serving political career.
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>I suspect his anti-EU stance has more than a little to do with having worked for the British Sugar Corporation, of which the best that can be said is that it seems to be a little less evil than British American Tobacco.
For someone with an anti-EU stance, he was certainly paid enough from companies in Ireland and Germany during the last Parliament....
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmregmem/191105/davis_david.htm
"For someone with an anti-EU stance, he was certainly paid enough from companies in Ireland and Germany during the last Parliament...."
You're implying companies based in Ireland have a pro-EU view rather than just being corporate addresses for multinationals, in all likelihood, for advantageous tax or regulatory purposes.
As for the board membership for Mansfeider Kupfer Und Messing GMBH - I don't know enough about the company to speculate on the nature of the relationship.
All Conservative MPs are there for the money and power.
The ones that aren't don't seem to last all that long these days. I'm thinking of Heidi Allen, the only Tory MP to visit foodbanks to increase her understanding of what is going on rather than using them as background for idiotic publicity shots. Whatever mis-steps she may have made after she left the Conservatives, it was pretty clear from her very first speech as an MP that her days with them were numbered.
That happens quite a lot if you challenge traffic tickets. The cop who issues the ticket has to show, if they don't you get the ticket dismissed. The downside is that its potentially a lot of work to get to this stage and there's always a chance the cop will show. Most people just pay the ticket.
This is a whole different deal. The Federal court system is very different and a lot more dangerous than a state or municipal court. Right now I'd suggest that all extradition requests from the UK are routinely denied unless two things happen -- first of all, the US shows it has a case and second Mrs Sacoolas is returned to answer charges of causing death by dangerous driving (the UK has been told to 'pound sand' by US authorities).
But but we need the trade "deal"!
Are fair trials for British citizens more important than the trade deal? The trade deal will pave the way to becoming the 51st vassal state. This is a historic opportunity for our nation.
We need to accept that a few lives might be lost, and fair trials a memory, but this is a small price to pay for our greatest friend Trump as he really wants to give us the best "deal".
We will be able to use those American "thoughts and prayers" for these situations. I am sure Scoolas and HPs thoughts and prayers is all we'll need.
Oh and a trade "deal".
I've seen enough Hollywood films to know that Brits are always the bad guys.
How about James Bond, through United Artists those are also Hollywood films. And even so, the Brits still have it better than the Dutch, who are the bad guys in all non Dutch films and even half the time in Dutch films.
to give Lynch a fair trial ?
It shouldn't matter. Nobody should be facing extradition to the USA until Anne Sacoolas is on a plane.
It's not popular in these parts to admit that I love America and most of its people - I've never met an American that caused me any problems. However, Anne killed a young lad who was doing no wrong. It may very well have been a mistake, but fleeing justice is to deliberately inflict further pain on the family.
Do the right think Mrs Sacoolas, and get on the next available flight to the UK. Chances are very good you'll be making the trip home again a few weeks later.
Perhaps it should beLynch and HPE have also spent £40m on legal fees for the trial in the High Court,.. ... Steve Davies 3
Probably better to realise Lynch and HPE have been charged £40m legal fees for the trial in the High Court.
The Court Jesters of Financial Injustice never choose to be cheap as chips, win or lose ....... which is a nice racket indeed for those who like flirting with the truth trading lies.
Lynch and HPE have also spent £40m on legal fees for the trial in the High Court
And as a somewhat put out reader who works in IT in a Law firm, I would just like to observe that most law firms do not make anywhere near this sort of money. Most firms are quite happy if we make a million or so a year from charging about two thousand people about five hundred quid a time to do the legal work for buying or selling a house or similar in very boring areas of law.
This is the top 200 law firms in the UK by revenue.
https://www.thelawyer.com/top-200-uk-law-firms/
As you can easily check on the list above if this case was a law firm, it would be #79 of the largest law firms in the UK in it's own right. It's actually absurd how much this single case is costing.
Anne Sacoolas killed Harry Dunn as she left RAF Croughton (Northants) not Menwith Hill (Yorks).
The headline of this article is poorly crafted. It should probably be "david davis says stop extradition of mike lynch to US".
But Davis is right about the extradition treaty imbalance.
There's no imbalance in the treaty, same rules apply both sides - the imbalance in what we consider to be a satisfactory case to answer. The US uses their system of district/state/US attorneys which are political positions which encourage news-making - and grand juries where the prosecutor gets to state any case they feel like which the potential defendant cannot argue their case. In the UK we have professional prosecutors who weigh the case on its merits, public interest and likelihood of succeeding - and it's explicitly apolitical (or it's supposed to be anyway). That's where the perceived imbalance comes from.
The Harry Dunn case is particularly shitshowy and there's the whole issue of diplomatic immunity (which it's not obvious is valid) that will go through the US court system. There is a strong and easy case to make to stop all UK-US extraditions until it is resolved though, absent exceptional circumstances.
That's not what the article says. It says we must extradite if the Americans provide a warrant but that we have to present a case to get Americans extradited here. We must comply with a warrant, they may comply with a case. Must and may do not mean the same thing.
"The Harry Dunn case is particularly shitshowy and there's the whole issue of diplomatic immunity (which it's not obvious is valid) that will go through the US court system"
The diplomatic immunity clearly is not valid. It is not at all clear that her husband was a diplomat on a diplomatic mission but most clearly she is no longer in a foreign country so diplomatic immunity cannot apply and is completely irrelevant. The imbalance in the treaty is completely plain in this specific case. The UK could not refuse extradition in a similar case. We would not be so stupid as to want to do so but that is a sperate matter.
There is a big problem with the fairness of the US legal system in which abuses are widespread and normalised with the use of the plea bargain system to coerce false confessions and false testimony. There is also the problem of extraterritoriality - ignorance of the law is no defence, but ignorance of a different countries law when you are in your own country? Lastly there has been clear bias in some high profile cases when a foreign company or individual is tried.
We need to refuse to extradite anyone until Anne Sacoolas is returned for trial. We need to reform the exisiting treaty to give us the ability to refuse and require the US to demonstrate they have a case, that the offence was committed in the US, the crime is also a crime in Britain and that the trial will be fair.
It says we must extradite if the Americans provide a warrant but that we have to present a case to get Americans extradited here.
Yeah but that's not how it works which is how Assange is still rotting in a UK prison cell. The only way they can do it with just a warrant is if it's uncontested, but that's the same the other way.
On the Sacoolas thing IMHO it's fairly clear that hubby is NSA or CIA and that's why the US is being protective. Without being declared persona non grata the only people who are fair game is who the US elects to decide are fair game. The real issue that the US aught bare in mind is what they're doing is precedential - when some young lad in the US gets mown down by a drunk British (or any other country) diplomat driving on the wrong side of the road (they'd have to be drunk because most people can tell the difference between left and right) and they claim immunity and leave the country what are they going to say to the family of the victim? Oh, well, we could have prosecuted him, but we tried to be clever in another case and it's fucked us right proper.
As for it originally being valid if her husband has immunity, which he probably does, then the convention is clear that it cross-applies to family, for fairly obvious reasons. It's an abuse of the treaties though - they exist to stop the likes of Iran and China locking people up just for the fun of it, not as a catch all we can do whatever we like which is a real risk of ending the entire diplomacy system, especially when it's a key military ally.
I'm not entirely sure I 100% disagree on the point about stopping extraditions, but it does work both ways, despite what you think and they're a massive help with things like tracking down people who skip out on paying child support and making them pay it and other such things.
If you are used to driving on one side of the road, are driving on the other side, and then turn off one into an *empty* road, it is very easy to end up on the wrong side. No problem if there is traffic visible - but if the traffic is on the other side of the brow of a hill, it can be a problem.
>If you are used to driving on one side of the road, are driving on the other side, and then turn off one into an *empty* road, it is very easy to end up on the wrong side.
No it's not. If you can't deal with driving on the other side you shouldn't be driving there, period.
True dat - I've done it myself - After 6 weeks in Spain driving a UK-spec Land Rover on the right hand side, I came back to the UK. The following morning, hopped in the Landy at 7am to get some milk and drove half a mile on the RHS of an empty road before I realised something wasn't quite right...
If you look at Google maps, the Croughton air base exit is on to a narrow B-road, which runs straight for about 400 yards (in both directions) before a bend. Easy to "automatically" get on the wrong side of an unmarked road, and reports state that the "accident"* happened 400 yards from the base exit. I've not seen it stated anywhere, but it seems likely that:
- The accident happened on the blind bend.
- That the road near the exit wasn't marked "Keep left".
* "Accident" as in not intentional. So the charge should be "Driving without due care and attention" rather than "Dangerous driving".
Diplomatic Immunity is very important for genuine diplomats, it is in place to prevent vexatious accusations being made against a countries representatives.
The "tragic accident" caused by negligence is clearly not a vexatious accusation. The facts are well established, the evidence is likely to stand up in a court of law in both countries, and there is the principle that diplomatic immunity can be removed in cases where there is a genuine case.
If the US believe causing death isn't grounds for extradition then they can fuck right off for extradition for any crime less than death.
Davis also called for British extradition law "to change to exactly mirror the American law, something they can't possibly complain about".
Want a bet? Having been a darling of the Johnsonites (an early sect, still surviving to the current day) I suspect he is blotting his copybook. How long before he is deselected as an MP having had the whip withdrawn (which might really annoy him in all of its interpretations)?
For US federal courts noting and sticking to rulings in higher British courts and staying well out of ongoing cases and cases where a party has been ruled against - not least because forum shopping is abusive to the rule of law cannot be allowed. This should be fought in the US court system before it ends up anywhere near an extradition request.
Pardon my cynicism but driving on the wrong side of the road is dangerous but how with eyes on the road ahead do you get to kill someone, given the instinct to brake, swerve whatever on the part of both drivers.
Could she possibly have been seeing double? No.... no way... not a chance.....
There are a lot of single track roads in the area where that could happen.
RAF Croughton exits onto the B4031, a normal 2 lane road with centre lines linking Croughton village with the A43. I think the collision happened at the sharp bend a few hundred metres east of the base where being on the wrong side would give zero time to react if they met near the apex.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Croughton/@51.9863416,-1.1980541,3362m
I worked in that area in the mid 1980's, and almost every time I had to drive in the direction of the base for work, my boss would give me the lecture about crawling speed around the corners and slowing down if there was an approaching car on a narrow road "because of the Yanks".
It doesn't help that most of them learned to drive in cars almost as wide as our country roads.
An FOI request to Northamptonshire Police regarding the number of accidents in the area would be interesting.
It has been a very well known problem locally, for a very long time!
"Pardon my cynicism but driving on the wrong side of the road is dangerous but how with eyes on the road ahead do you get to kill someone, given the instinct to brake, swerve whatever on the part of both drivers.
My understanding was the collision occured immediately before/after a bend where the motorbike rider had no time to avoid the car.
The accident very understandable without the need for conspiracy theories, impairment through alcohol, drugs etc. GIven the defendants good character and that she had been in the UK a short time, that she was a mother with children (unfair but women do systematically get treated more leniently). She would have been held responsible for the accident but received little if any jail time. The problem is her seeking to evade responsibility. Whoever advised her was an idiot, the long term damage to her and her families reputation and the effect of the negative publicity on her and her family will have a far greater impact than simply accepting her punishment whatever it turned out to be. This will continue for a long time. The effect on US UK relations and future extraditions are potentially enormous especially in the current environment where the US makes little attempt to hide its contempt for other nations, and existing treaties and relationships.
Trouble is, unpalatable as it might be, no extradition of people who were covered by diplomatic immunity is probably the correct option. Otherwise you have a precedent for our staff in Dodgigovernmentistan being extradited for their part in a traffic accident they don't recall happening at all.
Whether it would have been better if the US goverment had waived diplomatic immunity is another and separate question.
If we could get a believable statement on whether she had diplomatic immunity that might help understanding. Reports are all over the shop on this and there appear to be little one can actuall believe rather than pander to your favourite confirmation bias. But I agree that diplomatic immunity - even if occasionally abused is a good thing.
This is frankly nonsense. Diplomatic immunity is not intended to prevent extradition. It is intended to prevent harassment with spurious criminal investigations and charges within a foreign country.
If charges are assessed as not being spurious then the immunity can and usually is waived.
Once back in the home country the diplomat and his family are necessarily protected and diplomatic immunity simply does not apply. The normal extradition process allows spurious or abusive request to be denied whether the subject is a diplomat or not.
The US is denying a legitimate extradition request which is clearly not abusive simply becaust it can. the clear message is that it regards teh inconevnience of teh wive of a minor US official as mor esigniifcant than the life of a UK citizen and that it regards good relations as of only minor if any concern.
From a UK perspetive this puts NATO membership, security amd intelligence cooperation and our continued support of the US in almost all areas in a different light to what has historically been understood. At the very leats we should suspend our extradition treaty which is now seen as one side and worthless.
The Julian Assange case is very different.
There is no diplomatic immunity and the supposed offense were committed remotely.
Personally I think the US charges are an example of US extraterratoriality and abusive. Allowing a foreign government to extradite foreign nationals from the UK country because the helped facilitate a US citizen to publish information which is embarrassing to the US government is a terrible precedent. It could be deployed against journalists or by countries which have totalitarian and repressive regimes.
I am not a lawyer so I have no ide aabout the legal situation.
The Swedish charges were quite different. It would have been right to extradite him on those charges even though it appeared possible they were a setup.
we welcome his constant attention to our liberties, something to which we must always pay due care."
You can't pay due care when you consistently walk all over them and try to pretend it's for our own good.
Davis told the House of Commons this afternoon that if HPE "fail to win their civil trial against Dr Lynch here in the UK… it is inconceivable that the US authorities would win a near-identical criminal case if it was fairly tried. Accordingly, the case for extradition would evaporate.
You mean when HPE fail to win, their entire case is nothing but smoke and mirrors.
What is inconceivable is that any case in the US would be tried fairly. He is one of their scapegoats and they want him badly.
I've not followed this case closely, but my understanding is that Lynch is suspected of performing actions which do not violate securities laws in the UK but which do in the US. Which is why there is a civil case in the UK but a potential criminal one in the US.
As for fairness, US juries have become increasingly suspect of the government. Even with a biased judge, "innocent until proven (beyond reasonable doubt) guilty" is hammered into us until it is practically in our genes. (And we appreciate that from you Left Pondians, btw.)
Combined with the fact that he will doubtlessly have a high-powered defense attorney, and yes, I do have confidence that his chances of a fair trial are quite good.
If he looks for a plea, that's another matter. Unfortunately, a federal district attorney can be motivated to drive a hard or lenient bargain for various reasons.
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