Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

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Prologue – Extradition as perceived by the great powers

The public may not understand the technicalities, but it does understand the risk

China – Proposed changes in a Hong Kong law

The freedom fighters in Hong Kong were spurred into action by the threat of a Hong Kong law that would allow extradition to China. This is the world’s most visible symbol of the importance of extradition.

The United States – The Julian Assange extradition hearing

In a lengthy and well organized comment, Embee (of Isaac Brock Society fame) opines that the Assange extradition hearing was “a matter of inhumane treatment at the direction of the UK judicial system and a blatant overreach by the US in order to punish and make an example of a journalist who revealed that which they did not want to be public knowledge”. Embee further notes that:

The UK judge, Vanessa Baraitser, not only denied Julian Assange the dignity of sitting with his lawyers during that portion of the trial (he was in a glass cage, could barely hear what was being said in court and could not communicate confidentially with his lawyers), she has denied him bail knowing full well he is already in poor health and could be very vulnerable to an outbreak of COVID-19 in Belmarsh Prison.
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/03/25/assange-extradition-assange-denied-bail-further-visits-despite-virus-risk/

Extradition is becoming a very important political (and possible immigration) issue

There are many things in life that are invisible until you become aware of them. I have never given much thought to extradition. My basic understanding of extradition (to the extent that I understood it at all) was that it was a process to return criminals to the country that had jurisdiction over the crime. For example, Britain is attempting to extradite Anne Sacoolas back to Britain, to stand trial for the death (homicide?) of Harry Dunn. In this instance, it’s agreed that Ms. Sacoolas, while driving on the wrong side of the road, hit Harry Dunn and that resulted in his death. It’s clear that this occurred in Britain. It’s also clear that Ms. Sacoolas returned to America and has refused to return to Britain to stand trial. In a statement which is indicative of the height of American hypocrisy, her lawyer, Amy Jeffress, is reported by the Guardian to have said:

A statement from the lawyer for Anne Sacoolas came after the Crown Prosecution Service announced it was bringing charges over Dunn’s death in August. Amy Jeffress said the potential 14-year sentence was “not proportionate” for what was “a terrible but unintentional accident”.

The statement said: “Anne is devastated by this tragic accident and continues to extend her deepest condolences to the family. Anne would do whatever she could to bring Harry back. She is a mother herself and cannot imagine the pain of the loss of a child. She has cooperated fully with the investigation and accepted responsibility … This was an accident, and a criminal prosecution with a potential penalty of 14 years’ imprisonment is simply not a proportionate response.”

Right. This coming from a lawyer in a country that claims the right to levy FBAR penalties which amount to 50% of the highest balance in a foreign bank account …

The outrageousness of Ms. Jeffress’s claim aside, the simple fact is that the United States has refused to return Anne Sacoolas to the U.K., when there is an extradition agreement that arguably (at least in spirit) seems to require it. (For a possible explanation of the U.S. refusal, see the comment by Andy05 below.) Extradition in general and the Sacoolas situation in particular has given extradition a notoriety that is relatively new. The issue of the U.S. U.K. extradition treaty has recently been raised in the House of Commons.

At the same time the United States is refusing to extradite Anne Sacoolas to the U.K., to stand trial for an event that clearly took place in the U.K.:

The United States is using extradition treaties with other countries, to require those other countries to arrest and extradite individuals for crimes which did NOT occur in those countries or in the United States. To put it another way, the United States apparently sees extradition treaties as way to facilitate it’s role as the world’s “Lone Ranger” – scouring the world for people it doesn’t like – with every treaty parter playing the role of “Tonto”. (Apparently, “Jay Silverheels, who played The Lone Ranger’s sidekick Tonto in the TV series and movies, was born to a Mohawk chief on the Six Nations Reservation in Brantford, Ontario …”. This would make Canada a natural “Tonto” in the use of extradition treaties to police the world.)

When the U.S. France extradition treaty was sent to the U.S. Senate for approval, President Clinton noted that:

The United States recognizes the extraterritorial application of many of its criminal statutes and frequently makes requests for fugitives whose criminal activity occurred in foreign countries with the intent, actual or implied, of affecting the United States.

Examples include:

Canada – In relation to sanctions against Iran: The Meng Wanzhou extradition case. Ms Wanzhou – a citizen of China – landed at Vancouver airport. At the request of the United States, Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou for the purpose of extradition to the United States. Ms. Wanzhou is alleged to have violated U.S. laws which in some way relate to U.S. sanctions on Iran. What is clear is that the facts giving rise to the U.S. criminal charges, did NOT take place in either the United States (she is not fleeing from the United States in the same way that Anne Sacoolas fled from Britain) or Canada. In other words, Canada is being asked to assist the United States for something that has nothing to do with Canada. Of course, China has responded by seizing two Canadian citizens in China. Those Canadians have been incarcerated in China for more than a year.

It appears (at least so far) that Canada has preferred to do the bidding of the United States rather than protect Canadian citizens.

France – In relation to sanctions against Iran as described in the following tweet:

At least initially the facts seems to be similar. We have France, at the request of the United States, arresting Rouhollahnejad an Iranian citizen – when he landed in France. Mr. Rouhollahnejad was charged by the United States for attempting to illegally import U.S. technology for military purposes on behalf of an Iranian company. A Reuters article of May 23, 2019 reported that a French court had approved Mr. Rouhollahnejad’s extradition to the United States.

Iran arrested two French citizens. Ultimately, the Government of France decided to release Rouhollahnejad to Iran in exchange for one of the two French citizens. As reported by Reuters on March 20, 2020:

DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran and France have agreed to swap a French academic held on security charges and an Iranian detained by Paris over alleged violations of U.S. sanctions against Tehran, Iranian state media reported on Friday. …

France has released Jalal Ruhollahnejad, an Iranian engineer wanted by U.S. authorities over sanctions charges, state broadcaster IRIB said on its website.

France refused to extradite Mr. Rouhollahnejad to the United States (possibly without regard to the terms of the U.S. France extradition treaty).

France appears to put the interests of its citizens over the demands of the United States.

The UK – in relation to circumstances that took place in the U.k., did not constitute a crime in the U.K., but were a violation of U.S. law

As reported from the American perspective – yahoo news:

As reported from the U.S. perspective by Reuters:

LONDON (Reuters) – Mike Lynch, the British tech billionaire who sold his data company Autonomy to Hewlett Packard, submitted himself for arrest on Wednesday as part of a bid by the United States to extradite him to face criminal charges.

Lynch’s lawyers said he “vigorously rejects all the allegations against him and is determined to continue to fight these charges”.

Hewlett Packard is suing Lynch in Britain’s High Court for billions of pounds in damages over the deal. It has alleged he fraudulently inflated the value of Autonomy before he sold it.

Lynch has denied the allegations.

“The US Department of Justice should not have commenced extradition proceedings prior to the judgment of the English High Court,” Lynch’s lawyers Chris Morvillo and Reid Weingarten said.

As reported from the U.K. perspective by MP David Davis:

But the UK business world should be alarmed. The DoJ looks to be deploying strongarm tactics and Lynch’s lawyers are right to shout about the wider business implications. Here’s one central question: should the fallout from the takeover of a UK company, conducted under UK takeover rules, really end up in a US court?

Lynch was the founder of a UK company quoted on the London Stock Exchange. Allegations of improper accounting in the $11bn sale of Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard in 2011 were investigated by the UK Serious Fraud Office, which decided there was insufficient evidence to bring charges, and Lynch has always denied any wrongdoing. Yet the DoJ wants to bring charges of fraud and conspiracy against Lynch relating to the deal.

and generally the U.K. sentiment includes:

The U.S. claims concern alleged conduct in the UK. Dr Lynch is a British citizen who ran a British company listed on the London Stock Exchange, governed by English law and UK accounting standards. This extradition request reflects yet another example of the DOJ’s attempts to exert extraterritorial jurisdiction over non-US conduct.

Clearly, this one more example of how extradition agreements can come at the cost of harming a country’s own citizens. This is why when negotiating extradition treaties some countries reserve the right to NOT extradite their own citizens. Canada WILL extradite its own citizens. The U.K. WILL extradite its own citizens. France WILL NOT necessarily extradite its own citizens.

The relationship between extradition treaties and FATCA IGAs

Both extradition treaties and FATCA IGAs are instances where:

1. The United States is requiring the transfer (in one case people and the other information);

2. Under circumstances where it harms the citizens of the treaty partner country.

This is the end of Part 1 of the Extradition series. Part 2 will explore extradition more generally.

14 thoughts on “The Extradition Series – Part 1: As The World Becomes Smaller, Extradition Becomes Bigger”

  1. There is nothing new in what I am about to write, but these points are worth highlighting: It is true that there is hypocrisy in the U.S. Government’s position on Saccolas given its insistence on waiver of the diplomatic immunity of Gueogui Makharadze, deputy chief of mission of the Embassy of Georgia when he ran down and killed Jovianne Waltrick in Washington DC on Jan. 4, 1997. Saccolas was not a diplomat but she, through her husband who like other American intelligence community employees assigned to RAF Croughton had at least functional, and apparently full, diplomatic immunity even though they had little or no connection to the Embassy itself (which does have substantial CIA and NSA offices within it). As a retired U.S. Foreign Service Officer I can relate that the State Department routinely repatriates instantly any of its employees assigned abroad who risk arrest following a serious traffic or other incident. Rarely does the host country complain publicly.

  2. Article on Alstom executive Frédéric Pierucci, who was arrested off a plane at JFK, for offenses (bribery) committed in Indonesia. The US Justice Department may have been at least partly motivated by American business interests (hoping to force Alstom to let itself be purchased by GE). Pierucci has recently written a book on his experience::

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47765974

  3. @Zia’od

    Thanks for that article. An amazing read!

    One reason that some executives renounce U.S. citizenship is so that they are not directly subject to the Corrupt Foreign Practices Act.

    Interestingly, the Trump administration is reported to have been considering taking steps to get rid of the Corrupt Foreign Practices Act.

    https://business.financialpost.com/news/fp-street/white-house-considering-changes-to-law-banning-u-s-companies-from-paying-bribes-overseas

  4. What about Julian Assange? His only “crime” was to expose US war crimes and thoroughly embarass then enrage the US government. He did not commit this “crime” while on US soil and he is not a US citizen. If the US cannot get its hands on him by extradition the plan, with UK cooperation, appears to be to let him perish in a UK prison.

  5. @Embee

    Yes – I realized after I put the post up that I had omitted him.

    I will add a paragraph about him. Done! But, I invite you to write an appropriate paragraph and I will add it to the post. I have already added a reference to Andy05’s comment. I think Zai’od’s comment should be incorporated too. This is becoming a community post.

    What do you think?

  6. Let’s cut to the chase. Your predictions please. Setting aside political motives, at what dollar figure owed would the US be willing to threaten extradition for tax non-compliance? The process is not cheap; there needs to be some return on that investment.

  7. @Ron Henderson

    Cut to the chase?

    This post is about extradition generally. It’s not about tax compliance. For what it’s worth, tax is not one of the categories of extraditable crimes under the U.S. Canada tax treaty.

  9. @USCA
    The tweet you inserted, linked to NPR, refers to the hearing which took place at the end of February. It has been adjourned until May 18th but COVID-19 has introduced uncertainty as to that date.
    https://consortiumnews.com/2020/02/29/live-updates-from-london-assange-extradition-hearing-adjourned-until-may-18/
    The UK judge, Vanessa Baraitser, not only denied Julian Assange the dignity of sitting with his lawyers during that portion of the trial (he was in a glass cage, could barely hear what was being said in court and could not communicate confidentially with his lawyers), she has denied him bail knowing full well he is already in poor health and could be very vulnerable to an outbreak of COVID-19 in Belmarsh Prison.
    https://consortiumnews.com/2020/03/25/assange-extradition-assange-denied-bail-further-visits-despite-virus-risk/
    As to the technical arguments about his extradition I’m really not qualified to comment. (I’d be as prejudiced for Assange as the judge has been against him.) To me it is a matter of inhumane treatment at the direction of the UK judicial system and a blatant overreach by the US in order to punish and make an example of a journalist who revealed that which they did not want to be public knowledge.

  11. Don’t forget the FIFA corruption case from 2015. Brazilians in Brazil accused of financial crimes against an organization based in Switzerland, which had absolutely nothing to do with the USA, the crimes did not occur on US soil, being extradited for trial in the US. And for all that, the USA gets to keep the fines, not either of the countries concerned.

  12. @Barbara

    Thank you for the reminder. Good article from the New York Times

    https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/27/sports/soccer/fifa-officials-face-corruption-charges-in-us.html

    includes:

    The case is the most significant yet for United States Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, who took office last month. She previously served as the United States attorney in Brooklyn, where she supervised the FIFA investigation. Ms. Lynch and F.B.I. Director James Comey were expected to hold a news conference on Wednesday morning in New York.

    With more than $1.5 billion in reserves, FIFA is as much a global financial conglomerate as a sports organization. With countries around the world competing aggressively to win the bid to host the World Cup, Mr. Blatter has commanded the fealty of anyone who wanted a piece of that revenue stream. He and FIFA have weathered corruption controversies in the past, but none involved charges of federal crimes in United States court.

    United States law gives the Justice Department wide authority to bring cases against foreign nationals living abroad, an authority that prosecutors have used repeatedly in international terrorism cases. Those cases can hinge on the slightest connection to the United States, like the use of an American bank or Internet service provider.

  13. To me, the FIFA case is the most egregious and shameful example of American overreach. You can claim that the US has a genuine grievance against Julian Assange. You can make the flimsiest of claims that Meng Wanzhou committed crimes against the USA because it involved US sanctions on Iran (and Canada, as usual, letting the USA impose their laws). But it’s simply impossible to claim that the FIFA corruption had the slightest thing to do with America. They found an excuse to prosecute in the US, and officials in Brazil and Switzerland were too timid to object.

    We all complain about US extraterritorial taxation and form crime fines robbing not just us, but our local economies. But what happens to US citizens abroad pales beside this new revenue source the US government has latched onto, prosecuting and collecting fines for crimes with zero connection to the USA on the gossamer-thin grounds that funds passed through the US financial clearance system for a fraction of a fraction of a second. And then reaping billions in fines for the US Treasury. It makes my blood boil.

  14. We all complain about US extraterritorial taxation and form crime fines robbing not just us, but our local economies. But what happens to US citizens abroad pales beside this new revenue source the US government has latched onto, prosecuting and collecting fines for crimes with zero connection to the USA on the gossamer-thin grounds that funds passed through the US financial clearance system for a fraction of a fraction of a second. And then reaping billions in fines for the US Treasury. It makes my blood boil.

    As you point out, the US is claims jurisdiction (the right to apply US law) on the basis of any connection to the United States. An interesting example is the use of a .com, .net or .org domain name. There has been at least one case (and I suspect more) where the U.S. has asserted jurisdiction over an individual based on creating a web site with a .net domain name. Imagine having a web site that the U.S. government decides is objectionable (for any reason at all). Imagine that the site (whereever actually hosted) as a .net domain name. Imagine then being extradited to the United States on the basis that the use of the .net domain name gives the US jurisdiction.

    See the following article:

    “Are you a New Zealander with a .com web address? Know the legal risks”
    https://www.nbr.co.nz/article/have-com-web-address-know-legal-risks-ck-113355

    Impossible. Nuts. Unbelievable. Those are some of the more polite reactions when I tell people that having a .com domain name for their website is sufficient for them to be subject to US jurisdiction – which allows for nasty stuff like the US government seizing their website or extradition to USA to stand trial over there based on allegations alone.

    The bottom line: If you have a .com domain name, or other at-risk domain names like .net, you are subject to US domestic laws and jurisdiction.

    This allows the US government to seize your website or even seek your extradition to USA to stand trial, based on allegations of breaking their laws. You’re also at risk from any mistakes and collateral damage.

    Read on …

    By the way, one of the examples discussed in the above article was discussed in the following Brock post from 2013:

    “Copyright claim pit U.S. against British student – U.S. asserts jurisdiction based on .net domain name”
    http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2012/07/16/copyright-claim-pit-u-s-against-british-student-u-s-asserts-jurisdiction-based-on-net-domain-name/

    Again, (if I am understanding correctly) the basis for the U.S. claim to extradite was based on the use of the .net domain name. Highly recommend that you go to this earlier Brock post and read the comments from 2013.

    ________________________________________________________________

    Finally, one of the posts in this “Extradition Series” will be about a Canadian who was extradited to the USA. The US claimed jurisdiction on the basis of his having used a “Hotmail” account.

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