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.