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Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury (Mr. Nick Ainger): I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
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Mr. Giles Carlyle-Clarke
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Ainger.]
5.59 pm
Mr. Robert Walter (North Dorset) (Con): I shall speak about just one gentleman, my constituent Mr. Giles Carlyle-Clarke, and about his impending extradition to the United States.
I know that the Minister had reservations about this debate, because she feels that she may have been operating in a quasi-judicial role, but I believe that she is responsible to Parliament for the decisions that have been made, and that it is therefore appropriate for those decisions to be questioned here. I will, however, seek reassurance from her on one aspect of the process, which I hope she will be able to give me. She was the Minister who made the final decision to accede to the wishes of the United States authorities, and authorise the extradition to the United States of my constituent. As his case is now being reviewed by her Department, it is her decision that is under review. I hope that she can reassure me that any decisions that are made are made not by her alone but by the Home Secretary himself. Otherwise she would be reviewing her own decision, and there can be no justice in that.
The subject of this debate, however, is the fate of my constituent, Mr. Giles Carlyle-Clarke, who is wanted by the Government of the United States in relation to four charges involving the smuggling of cannabis into the United States—and the possession of cannabis there—between 1983 and 1988. The charges therefore relate to events that took place some 20 years ago. I do not intend to deal with the guilt or innocence of my constituent, because this is not a court of law, but I will make the House aware that he protests his innocence, and I have no reason to doubt him. He has led an open and blameless life, and his family have lived at the same address for several hundred years. He has given that address as his principal residence for at least the last 26 years. He is a single parent with two children aged nine and 12.
My case to the Minister is a simple one. To extradite an individual for alleged crimes that the authorities claim took place between 17 and 22 years ago is unjust and oppressive when that individual has been living openly and not as a fugitive. This is an unprecedented decision, as it seems to ignore article 6 of the European convention on human rights, which states that
The Americans have not given credible evidence that my constituent should be extradited. Their evidence is based on statements made by hardened criminals as part of plea-bargaining deals.
Mr. Joel Cohen, an ex-district attorney in the United States, says:
"In my opinion, the methods employed by the Government of the United States through Agent Baker and others in obtaining these three affidavits were not only quite wrong, but rose to the level of egregious misconduct."
Joel Cohen has said that the effect of the American authorities' actions
Moreover, if convicted my constituent would face a mandatory life sentence in Alabama with no possibility of parole.
Mr. Carlyle-Clarke has lived and travelled openly—that includes visiting the United States since the alleged crime—and he has a clean record. The American authorities claim that they did not know where he was until the end of the 1990s. New evidence, which is before the Minister, proves that the American authorities have in fact known of his identity since 1988 and of his whereabouts since 1989. He has in fact served a sworn affidavit on the American authorities in May 1989, in which he gave his address—the address in Dorset, in my constituency—where he has continued to live. I have seen a copy of that document. It is inhumane to take away a sole parent from an eight-year-old child, and a child psychologist has given evidence outlining the horrendous and irreparable psychiatric damage that this extradition could have on his young child, Max.
The basis of the case is that, in the past few weeks, Giles Carlyle-Clarke's lawyers have made a new submission to the Home Office, based on dramatic new evidence that has recently emerged in the United States. His lawyers believe that this new evidence means that the Home Office must reverse its decision to permit his extradition to the United States of America, as its decision made in November 2004 was based on information that now turns out to have been untrue.
This new evidence reveals that the US authorities have, in fact, misled the Home Office. They claimed that they had no photographic means of identifying Giles Carlyle-Clarke until 1995. As he has claimed all along, it has now been confirmed that they had a photograph of him as long ago as May 1988. I have seen a copy of that photograph, which was acquired from the United States state attorney. Accordingly, the US authorities' reason for delay in extraditing Giles lacks any credibility. There now seems to be no explanation for the US authorities' delay in applying for the extradition of Giles Carlyle-Clarke until 1998 for alleged crimes that were committed between 17 and 22 years ago, when they knew of his identity in 1988 and his address in 1989.
In their new submission to the Home Office, Giles Carlyle-Clarke's lawyers are also requesting that, under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, the Home Office must release the full correspondence between itself and the US authorities in this case. I have also written to the Minister to make that same request, and I would be delighted if she could give me an answer to it this evening.
The new evidence is that Mr. Jefferson Dean, a US lawyer who has been retained by Mr. Carlyle-Clarke, discovered quite recently that a photograph of Mr. Carlyle-Clarke had been in the US authorities' possession since 1988, not 1995 as they had previously asserted. In addition, as I have said, Giles Carlyle-Clarke signed a sworn affidavit which was served on the US authorities and gave his home address in 1989. This was in connection with charges against another gentleman, who is not particularly relevant here, relating to the smuggling of cannabis. The US authorities have therefore been able to identify Giles Carlyle-Clarke, and known of his whereabouts, since 1988 and 1989 respectively. On the back of the new submission, the Home Office will be considering the papers relating to his case.
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The background relating to the new evidence is that the Home Office has been led to believe by the US authorities that they were only able to identify Giles Carlyle-Clarke from that photograph in 1995 and, therefore, progressed the extradition in the belief that the delay for the extradition request was acceptable.
The US authorities claimed that as they had no photograph of Mr. Carlyle-Clarke before 1995 they had no means of identifying him and circulating him as a wanted criminal before then, and therefore could not find him for three years. If they had been able to do so, they could have put him on a red Interpol list and, given his extensive travels in the intervening years, which are apparent from the photocopy of his passport that I have seen, he would have been apprehended much earlier. But the authorities made no attempt to do that, despite the fact that he maintained that the photograph had been in the possession of the US authorities since 1988 and so they must have known his identity for at least seven years before they said they had.
During a period of over six years since 1998, the legal process in this country required the Home Secretary to consider the representations of both the US authorities and Mr. Carlyle-Clarke on the question of delay. But the Home Secretary at the time persistently rejected Mr. Carlyle-Clarke's version of events. In November 2004, he was informed of the Home Secretary's decision to extradite him to the US. Also in November 2004, Mr. Justice Pitchford held in the High Court that the Home Secretary was fully entitled to find on the evidence before him that the US authorities did not come into possession of the photograph until 1995 or thereafter, and that Mr. Carlyle-Clarke's defence team was wrong to suggest that there was any evidence to the contrary. As Mr. Carlyle-Clarke's lawyers had not expected this interpretation of the evidence, they decided to instruct a US-based attorney, Mr. Jeffrey Dean III, with a specific brief to find out what the truth was. During his investigation, Jeffrey Dean discovered the new evidence.
Giles Carlyle-Clarke maintains that he is innocent. He has been living an open and blameless life based at the same address in Dorset for over 25 years, and not as a fugitive. He has travelled extensively, including to the US. He is the sole parent of Max, aged eight, and father to Jessica, aged 12. He knew nothing of these allegations until he was arrested by the Dorset police in December 1997.
In summary, can the Minister tell me why she is content that the US authorities did not seek the extradition of Giles Carlyle-Clarke until January 1998 on charges that related to events that took place between 1983 and 1988? Why, after a decision by the courts in this country to allow the extradition in November 1999, did it take the Home Office two and a half years until July 2002 to respond?
It is, to use a legal phrase, unjust and oppressive, by reason of the passage of time, for Giles Carlyle-Clarke to be extradited to the US. I understand from leading Queen's Counsel who specialise in this area of the law that if the case related to an extradition between Commonwealth countries it would be held to be unjust on the basis of his inability to deal with events so distant in the past, and oppressive because he has lived a new and blameless life in the intervening period.
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I hope that the Minister can reassure me now that Mr. Giles Carlyle-Clarke can get on with his life as a free man without these charges hanging over him.
6.13 pm
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