Oh dear, this one is tricky. Obviously, it’s insane that we agreed to extradite people to the US without any evidence of a crime needing to be shown by the US authorities.
On the other hand, these guys are bankers who helped in the Enron scandal. I find it hard to summon up much pitty.
I always love it when the right-wing press gets into a stew about unfair extradition treaties and the like. It is only ever over the fate of white people and/or upper middle-class and up the social scale. See these bankers. See the planespotting ‘spies’. See white people held in Arabian states.
Now, why can’t they conjure up such indignation when brown-skinned people are arrested in similar circumstances?
Given that their involvement in Enron (if any) was limited to nicking money from the incompetents who ran NatWest at the time, I find it hard to summon up any blame…
I also reckon your second point inherently makes it unfair to try these guys, in the US or indeed anywhere: the minute anyone says "Enron bankers", they’re going down forever by association, even though they’re not actually accused of any of the proper-bad things associated with Enron’s collapse (ie conning pension holders and state governments).
That’s in reply to Matt rather than Andew. I agree with Andrew, but liberals can be guilty of hypocrisy here too: I don’t think Matt would’ve said "I find it hard to sum up much pity for a man who wants a global Caliphate" when talking about Babar Ahmad.
Fair ’nuff. I’d accept that.
"The field is too small" to accept this data, apparently.
Ah, that was me trying to post a long address, like this one, pimping my small-press comics:
Could we not extradite all our young people to the US under this new treaty, thus solving loads of problems in one go?
Indeed, John is right, I’m being a massive hypocrite. Actually, I meant the original post in jest really: I’m not too aware of what these people are accused off, but the gut-reaction-liberal in me does a little dance when I hear "banker" and "criminal" together in this way.
The good side is that I guess the press *is* following this, and getting in a fuss over it. As Andrew says, if some AAARRRRAAAAABBBBBBBB was being extradited on no evidence, there’d probably be the sound of silence from much of the press: hopefully this might mean we re-consider the extradition treaty…
By ‘both sides’, I assume!
By liberals-who-believe-in-due-process and by reactionary-rightists-who-believe-in-due-process, certainly.
See, David, we do have common interests after all…
John, In my defense, I don’t think your example of Babar Ahmad is terribly good: the website you link to suggests that he is entirely inoccent; compare this to an article in today’s Indi: Bankers which suggests that our banker friends pocketed millions each: surely a crime. Now, the article then goes on to give very good reasons why they should be tried in this country, and I’m all for innocent until proven guilty etc. etc. But aren’t I allowed to secretly feel a little bit pleased about some corrupt bankers getting what’s coming to them, while feeling pissed off that some innocent guy is being deported. Someone like Abu Hamza would be a better comparison (and whom I do indeed "find it hard to sum up much pity for a man who wants a global Caliphate").
Don’t understand your point Matt – the US authorities say that Babar is a terrorist, *and* that these guys are thieves. Neither has been convicted; neither would get a fair trial if deported.
John, okay, I agree with your statement; and I’m not trying to make a particularly serious point here. However, the website about Babar has refutations of all the US’s accusations (and, frankly, they don’t have a great record in regards to sensible accusations in terror trials). I have seen no claims that the bankers, by contrast, do not have a case to answer in court. Of course, that court should be in the UK. But this seems to be a large difference between the cases…
John, have you ever read The Smartest Guys In The Room? To be honest, these three are just about the only people in the Enron fiasco who come across as down-and-out thieves; rather than operating in a miasma of self-delusion, arrogance, paranoia and selfish libertarianism.
Matt,
The bankers in question have proclaimed their innocence several times, and even asked the SFO and other UK authorities to bring a case against them here if they believe there is a case to answer. Just because a man is a millionaire, it doesn’t make him a crook, in the same way that a man wearing a turban, sporting a healthy tan and a scraggly beard isn’t a suicide bomber.
Now, you can believe them or not, but that’s for a court to decide based on the evidence, not for you based on the colour of their skin, their social class and relative wealth.
Can we all agree that no-one should be sent for trial aborad simply on the basis that the people who wanted him or her have got the name right?
Andrew,
Okay, well, I guess I’m beginning to clutch at straws. My assumption was that these guys were as basically as guilty as O.J. That doesn’t make what is happening to them right, but it does make a little bit of me glad that their getting what’s coming to them. However, maybe it isn’t as clear-cut as all that (though Richard would seem to come down on my side here).
Before anyone starts to believe I actually think they should be sent to the US, let me re-iterate: I fully agree with Jamie and John etc. and think that people should only be extradited once a UK court has seen evidence and agreed that they have a case to answer, and that they should best be tried abroad and not here.
Was it Blunkett who first pushed this law through? Blind tosser…
–Matt
That would be ‘found innocent in a court of law by a jury of his peers’ OJ? Here’s a spade, keep digging.
Blunkett pushed it through, and Caroline Flint denied in the Commons that it could be used for this exact purpose. Lucky she now works at Health, eh?
You think the OJ trial wasn’t a travesty of justice then?
No. OJ was probably guilty, the police clearly lied, the case was therefore thrown out, therefore justice was done.
Arse. I think I’ve clearly lost this argument. However, I shall be on the look out for when there’s the slightest wiff of double-standards coming from any of you…
Oh Christ, just look at my blog. I flip-flop like John Kerry. In the last 4 months alone, I’ve advocated voting Tory, Lib Dem, Labour and SNP.
"Here’s a spade, keep digging."
My God. I thought you wrote, ‘He’s a spade. Keep digging.’
In a memorably misjudged bit of phrasing, Roy Hattersley once said "When it comes to racism, I believe in calling a spade a spade" – though I imagine he was mortified when someone pointed it out.
Oh dear, this one is tricky. Obviously, it’s insane that we agreed to extradite people to the US without any evidence of a crime needing to be shown by the US authorities.
On the other hand, these guys are bankers who helped in the Enron scandal. I find it hard to summon up much pitty.
I always love it when the right-wing press gets into a stew about unfair extradition treaties and the like. It is only ever over the fate of white people and/or upper middle-class and up the social scale. See these bankers. See the planespotting ‘spies’. See white people held in Arabian states.
Now, why can’t they conjure up such indignation when brown-skinned people are arrested in similar circumstances?
Given that their involvement in Enron (if any) was limited to nicking money from the incompetents who ran NatWest at the time, I find it hard to summon up any blame…
I also reckon your second point inherently makes it unfair to try these guys, in the US or indeed anywhere: the minute anyone says "Enron bankers", they’re going down forever by association, even though they’re not actually accused of any of the proper-bad things associated with Enron’s collapse (ie conning pension holders and state governments).
That’s in reply to Matt rather than Andew. I agree with Andrew, but liberals can be guilty of hypocrisy here too: I don’t think Matt would’ve said "I find it hard to sum up much pity for a man who wants a global Caliphate" when talking about Babar Ahmad.
Fair ’nuff. I’d accept that.
"The field is too small" to accept this data, apparently.
Ah, that was me trying to post a long address, like this one, pimping my small-press comics:
http://bartlettsbizarrebazaar.blogspot.com/2005/05/buy-tales-of-contrary-and-empirical.html
Could we not extradite all our young people to the US under this new treaty, thus solving loads of problems in one go?
Indeed, John is right, I’m being a massive hypocrite. Actually, I meant the original post in jest really: I’m not too aware of what these people are accused off, but the gut-reaction-liberal in me does a little dance when I hear "banker" and "criminal" together in this way.
The good side is that I guess the press *is* following this, and getting in a fuss over it. As Andrew says, if some AAARRRRAAAAABBBBBBBB was being extradited on no evidence, there’d probably be the sound of silence from much of the press: hopefully this might mean we re-consider the extradition treaty…
By ‘both sides’, I assume!
By liberals-who-believe-in-due-process and by reactionary-rightists-who-believe-in-due-process, certainly.
See, David, we do have common interests after all…
John, In my defense, I don’t think your example of Babar Ahmad is terribly good: the website you link to suggests that he is entirely inoccent; compare this to an article in today’s Indi: Bankers which suggests that our banker friends pocketed millions each: surely a crime. Now, the article then goes on to give very good reasons why they should be tried in this country, and I’m all for innocent until proven guilty etc. etc. But aren’t I allowed to secretly feel a little bit pleased about some corrupt bankers getting what’s coming to them, while feeling pissed off that some innocent guy is being deported. Someone like Abu Hamza would be a better comparison (and whom I do indeed "find it hard to sum up much pity for a man who wants a global Caliphate").
Don’t understand your point Matt – the US authorities say that Babar is a terrorist, *and* that these guys are thieves. Neither has been convicted; neither would get a fair trial if deported.
John, okay, I agree with your statement; and I’m not trying to make a particularly serious point here. However, the website about Babar has refutations of all the US’s accusations (and, frankly, they don’t have a great record in regards to sensible accusations in terror trials). I have seen no claims that the bankers, by contrast, do not have a case to answer in court. Of course, that court should be in the UK. But this seems to be a large difference between the cases…
John, have you ever read The Smartest Guys In The Room? To be honest, these three are just about the only people in the Enron fiasco who come across as down-and-out thieves; rather than operating in a miasma of self-delusion, arrogance, paranoia and selfish libertarianism.
Matt,
The bankers in question have proclaimed their innocence several times, and even asked the SFO and other UK authorities to bring a case against them here if they believe there is a case to answer. Just because a man is a millionaire, it doesn’t make him a crook, in the same way that a man wearing a turban, sporting a healthy tan and a scraggly beard isn’t a suicide bomber.
Now, you can believe them or not, but that’s for a court to decide based on the evidence, not for you based on the colour of their skin, their social class and relative wealth.
Can we all agree that no-one should be sent for trial aborad simply on the basis that the people who wanted him or her have got the name right?
Andrew,
Okay, well, I guess I’m beginning to clutch at straws. My assumption was that these guys were as basically as guilty as O.J. That doesn’t make what is happening to them right, but it does make a little bit of me glad that their getting what’s coming to them. However, maybe it isn’t as clear-cut as all that (though Richard would seem to come down on my side here).
Before anyone starts to believe I actually think they should be sent to the US, let me re-iterate: I fully agree with Jamie and John etc. and think that people should only be extradited once a UK court has seen evidence and agreed that they have a case to answer, and that they should best be tried abroad and not here.
Was it Blunkett who first pushed this law through? Blind tosser…
–Matt
That would be ‘found innocent in a court of law by a jury of his peers’ OJ? Here’s a spade, keep digging.
Blunkett pushed it through, and Caroline Flint denied in the Commons that it could be used for this exact purpose. Lucky she now works at Health, eh?
You think the OJ trial wasn’t a travesty of justice then?
No. OJ was probably guilty, the police clearly lied, the case was therefore thrown out, therefore justice was done.
Arse. I think I’ve clearly lost this argument. However, I shall be on the look out for when there’s the slightest wiff of double-standards coming from any of you…
Oh Christ, just look at my blog. I flip-flop like John Kerry. In the last 4 months alone, I’ve advocated voting Tory, Lib Dem, Labour and SNP.
"Here’s a spade, keep digging."
My God. I thought you wrote, ‘He’s a spade. Keep digging.’
In a memorably misjudged bit of phrasing, Roy Hattersley once said "When it comes to racism, I believe in calling a spade a spade" – though I imagine he was mortified when someone pointed it out.