The United States has told Britain that it has the right to “kidnap” British citizens if they are suspected of crimes in America – and this can be done without using formal extradition procedures.
A senior lawyer for the US Government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under the US law as the country’s Supreme Court has sanctioned it, The Sunday Times reported.
“It’s acceptable under the American law to kidnap people if they’re wanted for offences in America. The US does have a view about procuring people to its own shores which is not shared….If you kidnap a person outside the United States and you bring him there, the court has no jurisdiction to refuse – it goes back to bounty hunting days in the 1860’s” Alun Jones told the UK court.
The statement came when one of the Court of Appeal judges asked Jones, representing the US government about its treatment of the nephew of Stanley Tollman, a former director of Chelsea football club.
Gavin Tollman became the subject of an attempted abduction during a visit to Canada in 2005. The Tollmans are wanted in America for bank fraud and tax evasion.
In 2005, Gavin Tollman, the head of Trafalgar Tours, a holiday company, had arrived in Toronto by plane when he was arrested by Canadian immigration authorities.
An American prosecutor, who had tried and failed to extradite him from Britain, persuaded the Canadian officials to detain him. Tollman was escorted in handcuffs from the aircraft in Toronto, taken to prison and held for 10 days.
