Re: Its not over until its over...
Delusional,
It's obviously hard to know what's true and what isn't, because there was no trial in the USA. So the prosecution argument and evidence were never tested. If I were a cycnic I would suggest they gave immunity to a bunch of witnesses in order to get them to testify against the bigger fish, and intimidated the bigger fish into pleading guilty to get deals with the threat of ludicrous sentences.
The lack of compelling evidence in the UK trial suggests that I'm right to be cynical. But I await judgement because the devil is in the detail and while El Reg have been brilliant on their coverage of the trial and witnessses I don't know how good they've been on the written evidence. And this being a civil trial without jury - the judges should be as swayed by the written evidence as by what happens in court. Tough you'd expect the barristes to ram home their best written evidence in verbal statements too.
This being a civil case the burden of proof is lower. Decided "on the balance of probabilities" rather than, "beyond reasonable doubt." Given that, if this trial fails and that the UK Serious Fraud Office declined to even try to prosecute - the US case is going to look pretty bloody flimsy.
However, I doubt the US appeal system will have much sympathy for someone who pleaded guilty out of fear of being found guilty and spending the rest of their life in jail, so I suspect he'll end up having a lot of time in prison to regret not contesting the case. And Lynch will have to avoid going to the USA - because who likes admitting they were wrong?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
