LONDON, July 13: Three former British bankers, with US marshals at their side, were extradited to the United States on Thursday to stand trial on Enron-related fraud charges.
They left behind them a furore over the bilateral treaty — originally intended for terrorism suspects — by which they were extradited, and the mysterious death of a fellow banker in an east London park.
David Bermingham, Giles Darby and Gary Mulgrew — the so-called ‘NatWest Three’ — arrived separately at Croydon police station, south London, early in the morning, pending transfer to nearby Gatwick airport.
They brought with them family members for a tearful farewell before a crowd of photographers and TV cameramen.
From there they were put on a Continental airlines flight to Houston, Texas, where they are to appear in court on Friday and, they hoped, be released on bail.
“This is a very sad day,” their lawyer Mark Spragg said.
“They have said goodbye to their families, and they have no idea when they are going to come back.”
London’s Metropolitan Police confirmed the men were aboard the plane, whose departure was covered live by all-news TV channels.
Their extradition under the US-British treaty — a day after a memorial service in Texas for Enron founder and chief executive Kenneth Lay, who himself was convicted of fraud and conspiracy — followed a protracted but unsuccessful struggle by the trio in British courts to overturn the order.
Bermingham, Mulgrew and Darby are accused in the United States of personally pocketing millions of dollars after advising NatWest — now a unit of the Royal Bank of Scotland — to dispose of an obscure Enron-related offshore company for less than it was worth.
The trio and their supporters, including top British business executives, say that if they are suspects, they should be tried in Britain, as it is alleged that the fraud took place in Britain, against a British bank.
The story took a tragic twist on Wednesday — when parliament was debating the extradition — when it emerged that the dead body of another NatWest banker had been discovered the day before by a dog walker in an east London park.—AFP
