The NatWest Three are the three former National Westminster Bank PLC bankers based in London — David Bermingham, Giles Darby and Gary Mulgrew — who are charged in Houston with bilking their former employer of $7.3 million in one of the schemes allegedly engineered by former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow and his right hand man, Michael Kopper (previous posts are here).
However, NatWest never sought to recover the funds from the three men, never pursued criminal charges against them in England, and neither the Crown Prosecution Service, the Financial Services Authority nor the Serious Fraud Office in the UK found sufficient evidence to prosecute. If a trial had taken place in the UK, then the three men could not be extradited to the US because of the principle of double jeopardy. But since no British trial has taken place, the British Home Secretary has granted the US extradition request under the Extradition Act of 2003, which was passed to facilitate extradition of suspected terrorists to the US. Under that legislation, the Home Secretary can extradite British citizens without the US authorities having to make a prima facie case — they need only set forth a statement of the facts that they hope to prove. To make matters even murkier, the Extradition Act is a one-way street — to extradite an American citizen from the US, the British still need to provide evidence that the American citizen has committed an extraditable offense.

Well, the three bankers are continuing to fight extradition to the United States to face the charges by seeking a judicial review of the Serious Fraud Office’s decision not to investigate them in the UK for the alleged fraud. In that connection, this Times Online article raises the troubling prosecutorial conduct that has been involved in the NatWest Three case:

It seems unlikely that the FBI has incriminating evidence that has never been seen by the British authorities, although it is possible, as Mr Kopper and other former Enron executives have been busy shopping colleagues in return for shorter sentences. If there is no extra evidence, extradition looks unfair. If there is additional evidence, the British Government should surely request it, in order to decide whether to bring charges here.
One of the worst aspects of the case is the way that it has been used to stoke anti-Americanism. America has been portrayed as a wild frontier with no respect for due process. It is not. But British law has created a strange version of justice, a one-way street. A reciprocal treaty should be reciprocal. Right or wrong, the case of the NatWest three suggests that justice is not being seen to be done.

Just another example of how prosecutorial misconduct has become de jure in the Enron-related cases because of the pervasive perception of guilt that the prosecution and mainstream media have promoted to the public in those cases.