UK-US Extradition Treaty

It is important to consider how the tests operate and how they operated in relation to Enron. As my hon. Friend has said, there is a double-door procedure in relation to extraditions from this country to the US and in the opposite direction—in effect, there is a door in the US courts and a door in the UK courts—and both those doors must be passed through in order to extradite someone either way. In order for us to apply to extradite someone from the US, we must issue a letter based on information from the UK, which is the first door, and we then have to show probable cause in a US court, which is the second door. In order for the Enron three, for example, to be extradited from the UK, both doors must be passed through in the opposite direction. A grand jury must have a case shown to it that there was probable cause to issue an indictment in the United States, which is the first door. The second door is that a UK court must be satisfied that there was sufficient information to justify the issue of a warrant for arrest in this country, if the offence had been committed here. If a police officer were to apply for a warrant in front of a magistrate for an offence in this country, he would have to satisfy the magistrate that a criminal offence had taken place or that one was suspected to have taken place and that an identified person was suspected of having committed that offence. The test is higher than mere suspicion, because in the US the phrase ““probable cause”” means that the person who is asking to arrest someone has a reasonable basis to believe that a crime has been committed and that that person committed the crime, which is more than reasonable suspicion. If we were to return to the pre-2003 situation, the US would have had to prove a prima facie case, which is a much higher test.