Suspend the treaty now

Any relationship, ‘special’ or otherwise, depends upon clarity, fairness and reciprocity. The US–UK extradition treaty signed in March 2003, ratified in this country the following year, boasts none of those features. As a consequence, three British businessmen — David Bermingham, Gary Mulgrew, and Giles Darby — face imminent extradition from this country to Texas over allegations that they committed a crime in Britain, while operating in Britain with a British employer. The ‘NatWest Three’ are accused by US investigators of swindling the bank out of £4.5 million via some devious trading of its stake in an Enron subsidiary — allegations they deny. The UK’s Serious Fraud Office has decided not to prosecute; the Royal Bank of Scotland — which bought NatWest in 2000 — has remained shamefully evasive about the allegations against its former employees, apparently because it does not want to embroil itself in the hugely political Enron case in America, the web of litigation it has spawned and, particularly, the potentially devastating ‘class’ action launched by the University of California.

This week the Daily Telegraph published a letter, signed by many distinguished businessmen, calling on John Reid ‘to correct the mistake of a previous Home Secretary and preserve Britain’s ancient tradition of transparent justice’. The Spectator endorses that call wholeheartedly.

At Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Tony Blair said that he had asked his officials to seek reassurance that the three businessmen would be treated fairly. But that is not enough. The legal, moral and intellectual case for suspension of the 2003 treaty is unanswerable. Prompted by the 9/11 atrocities and the need to update the previous extradition arrangements agreed in 1972, the new pact was principally intended to facilitate the prompt removal of terrorist suspects from these shores to America, and vice versa.