Minister asks US to honour extradition treaty

It's yet another example of allies of Bush giving and giving and receiving only humiliation in return.

Tony Blair is having to despatch Baroness Scotland of Asthal to beg with US Senators to drop their opposition to a US-UK extradition Treaty.

The outrage in the UK is being caused by the case of three British businessmen who are to be extradited to the US on charges of fraud without the US having been required to produce any evidence of any kind before a British court of law.

This extraordinary arrangement was entered into by Tony Blair in March 2003, the same month that he assured Bush he would join in the invasion of Iraq. This is beginning to sound less like a meeting between two heads of state and more like British Sovereignty being touted in a car boot sale.

In 2003, Lady Scotland assured a Lords committee: "We anticipate that the treaty will be put before the Senate early in the new year and approved shortly thereafter."

It would appear the Americans have other ideas and what we now have is a judicial one way street, where our citizens can be carted before US Courts with no reciprocal arrangement on our side.

Don't get me wrong here, my objection isn't to the fact that we can't summarily demand that US citizens face our courts with no US court having a say. I don't think ANY nation should be able to summon the citizens of another country to face it's courts without first providing the country in question with a reasonable amount of evidence that the person they require has committed a crime.

But yes, the fact that this outrage is occurring one way and not the other does make me feel a little like those who existed outside of the Empire of Rome yet, nevertheless, could still feel it's tentacles around their ankles.

If I write something on this web site that Donald Rumsfeld doesn't like, he can summon me before an American court and his request alone is a guarantee that I will be delivered. This is beyond outrageous.

The Government's embarrassment could be increased today if the House of Lords votes for a Liberal Democrat amendment that would go back to the pre-2003 arrangement, compelling the US to produce evidence before British citizens can be extradited.

"The Government ...should never have agreed to abolish the need for evidence to be produced when the American government seeks extradition, while still leaving it necessary for evidence to be produced when extraditing the other way," the Liberal Democrat shadow Lord Chancellor, Lord Goodhart, said.

Is there no legal safeguard that these lunatics won't rip up in their War on a Noun? And, more importantly, is there nothing that Blair won't give to Bush without demanding some kind of parity?

People used to describe Blair as Bush's poodle. What nonsense. Poodles get pampered. Poodles get spoiled. Poodles get fed the choicest pieces of meat.

Blair's like the dumb girlfriend of a smack addict who is constantly treated like shit, yet keeps going back for more.

Will this national humiliation never end?

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Tags: Extradition, Treaty, US, UK, Blair, Bush, Baroness Scotland of Asthal, extradite, David Bermingham, Gary Mulgrew, Giles Darby,