Kidnapping. A fine legal tradition.

[mrph]

From the Times, spotted via Warren Ellis...

AMERICA has told Britain that it can “kidnap” British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States.

A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it.

Comments

[malal.livejournal.com]

WTF? o0

Obviously, the people doing the kidnapping are committing an offence under British law, and should be extradited & tried in this country. :-/

[dr-wez.livejournal.com]

It seems unlikely that the U.S. Government will agree to such extraditions. Luckily we can just hire Americans to kidnap & bring them to the U.K. for trial, so everyone's happy. ;)

[countess-sophia.livejournal.com]

This has been their policy for a long time now, since at least the late 1980s (cf the kidnapping of General Noriega of Panama following the US invasion of that country in 1989). There were a number of instances of private citizens being kidnapped by the US authorities in foreign countries over the course of the 1990s and President Clinton made it official policy in a National Security Directive in 1995 (see here: http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/pdd39.htm). Us courts have repeatedly refused to give remedy to persons who have been kidnapped by the US government. Bush's endeavours in this field we know.

What is surprising about this is that the US should have their representatives state their kidnapping doctrine in the Court of Appeal - it's not going to do them any favours with their Lordships, is it?

In any case, it's unlikely to come up as our cowardly government is up to to its neck in the 'renditions' scandal and has also signed a shockingly unequal extraditions treaty allowing people to be sent to the States for trial basically on US say so.

Don't expect the British government to protect our citizens from this. The courts might think otherwise though.

Soph

[lougarry.livejournal.com]

come on, is this so far out, after all this is a country whose government advocates torture - kidnapping is going to appear on that list somewhere.
It's not completely unexpected, and not something our government is going to do anythign about - they're too busy buying each other off with donations for peerages.