http://blog.geeklawyer.org/2006/03/01/extraditing-blairs-mates/ A barrister gossips & rants on intellectual property law, the legal system and civil liberties. Sat, 22 Nov 2008 06:19:32 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5 http://blog.geeklawyer.org/2006/03/01/extraditing-blairs-mates/#comment-1244 geeklawyer.org » Blog Archive » Another victim of Blair’s US sycophancy Wed, 10 May 2006 22:27:05 +0000 http://blog.geeklawyer.org/?p=398#comment-1244 [...] Geeklawyer is not standing up for McKinnon who clearly committed a criminal act and deserves to be punished. But while there is an argument for putting him on trial in the US there is also the same argument for doing so in the UK: he committed a criminal act in both jurisdictions and could be punished in either. So why is the US better? It seems more humanitarian, if you trust & respect the other country’s legal system, to let him rot in his own country’s jail where he is surrounded by his own people and can get visits. Not to mention letting that country pick up the tab for the jail term. Whatever the answer to that is; what pisses Geeklawyer off mightily is that here, yet again, we have an Englishman who is told by his government that he must face a foreign court without them having make a prima facie case to ours first unless he an persuade the Home Secretary not to send him. Frankly, writing a polite letter to the Home Secretary asking him to say ‘no’ to the Americans is a waste of good ink. And since when is a politician an appropriate substitute for a judge? [...] […] Geeklawyer is not standing up for McKinnon who clearly committed a criminal act and deserves to be punished. But while there is an argument for putting him on trial in the US there is also the same argument for doing so in the UK: he committed a criminal act in both jurisdictions and could be punished in either. So why is the US better? It seems more humanitarian, if you trust & respect the other country’s legal system, to let him rot in his own country’s jail where he is surrounded by his own people and can get visits. Not to mention letting that country pick up the tab for the jail term. Whatever the answer to that is; what pisses Geeklawyer off mightily is that here, yet again, we have an Englishman who is told by his government that he must face a foreign court without them having make a prima facie case to ours first unless he an persuade the Home Secretary not to send him. Frankly, writing a polite letter to the Home Secretary asking him to say ‘no’ to the Americans is a waste of good ink. And since when is a politician an appropriate substitute for a judge? […]

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