IN A WEEK in which Tony Blair tried to win permission to lock up suspected terrorists for 90 days without trial, he also introduced to Parliament a measure intended to allow other terrorists freedom from trial.
The Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill will allow IRA terrorist suspects to be granted what amounts to an amnesty. Those who committed crimes, including murder, before the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and then fled Northern Ireland are to be offered the chance to return. They will be able to apply to a commissioner who will grant a certificate allowing them to return without facing arrest or questioning, if they are no longer involved in terrorist activity.
Applicants would have their offences heard by special tribunals, which they would not be obliged to attend, and if they were convicted they would be put on licence but not imprisoned.
The Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary termed it “an amnesty for terrorists in all but name”. It is likely that some business people now facing imprisonment in the United States for offences rather less than murder will view the move with even more outrage.
Next week the judicial review begins of the extradition proceedings that would see the trio now known as “The NatWest Three” being sent to the United States. The extradition has been granted under a treaty aimed ostensibly at speeding up proceedings to do with terrorists. Britain signed what was supposed to be a reciprocal treaty with the US nearly three years ago. The US has still not got round to signing it. One reason was rumoured to be that there would have been uproar in parts of the US had the British used the treaty to try to get hold of some of the IRA murderers who had taken refuge in America.
But while the US has not signed, it has been applying for extradition orders under the treaty and not just for terrorists. There have been more applications for those alleged to have committed white-collar crimes than for those accused of terrorism.
The “NatWest Three” were implicated in the Enron affair. They are accused of defrauding their employer, Greenwich NatWest, through a contract with Enron. Yet the bank has not pushed charges against the trio, who maintain that they are innocent of any wrongdoing.
Like Ian Norris, the former chief executive of Morgan Crucible, who faces extradition accused of cartel practices many years ago, they want the chance to argue their case in a British court and are being denied it.
They all fear that, if they are extradited, they will be locked up as fugitives and will have to wait for months, and possibly years, before their cases reach court. If they ever would. For in more than 98 per cent of cases brought in the US, the accused eventually pleads guilty and does not go to trial.
The prevailing attitude towards financial crime in the US is so hostile that the men are understandably worried about potential sentences if they were forced to plead guilty because of mounting costs. Liberty, the human rights organisation in the UK, has asked to take part in the judicial review because it believes that the extraditions contravene the Human Rights Act. Some might argue that the Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill does, too.
Building a margin for error
THE slowdown in sales seems to have come as a bit of a surprise to Travis Perkins. Clearly it was not something the building materials group was anticipating last December when it paid £950 million for Wickes.
Even if its own consumer antennae were not functioning properly, it should have been alerted to potential dangers by the fact that the private equity firms that had been nosing around the company had bowed out. Bill Archer, who had built up the business, snatched at Travis Perkins’ money.
It was already apparent that the market for Wickes was getting difficult. Consumers were being cautious in their spending and the housing market, a major driver of sales of kitchens, bathrooms and conservatories, was lethargic. Yesterday Travis Perkins had to admit that it is feeling the consequences and they are getting worse. It remarks with a hint of peevishness that competitors have been cutting prices in an effort to win business and that this has hit its own sales.
That is what tends to happen in business when markets are tough. Sadly, it does hit profits, and the company had to confess that it would fall short of analysts’ expectations.
This appeared to surprise the stock market as much as it did Travis Perkins and the shares took a clobbering, as did those of others in the sector.
More positively, the company said synergies from the Wickes acquisition had exceeded expectations. So if it had been correct about the level of synergies, the price it paid would be looking even more generous than it does now.
Into the fold
THERE will be many who will have deep and justifiable reservations about Saudi Arabia joining the World Trade Organisation. After all, the Saudi regime is less noted for its enthusiasm for running a liberal, modern economy than for its lamentable record on human rights, its treatment of women and for suspicions of links to terror.
Yet, despite these qualms, inviting Riyadh into the community of free-trading nations is surely the right move, from a security as much as an economic perspective. The West’s interests clearly lie in a more politically stable Saudi Arabia.
To secure this end, the right approach must be to encourage the regime’s reformist elements as they try to forge a more dynamic economy. Despite oil wealth, Saudi economic performance has been very poor. This has fomented fundamentalism and now threatens stability. WTO entry is welcome as a means to counter these trends.
That's rich
THERE is something surreal about the legal action drag- ging on in the High Court in which two millionaires, Jon Wood and Peter Wilkinson, are suing two other millionaires, Chris Gorman and Tom Hunter, the Scottish retail entrepreneur. The first two argue that the second two deprived them of the chance to buy a business that went bust. They want £100 million in compensation. A difficult argument to make, but the opportunity to air intense animosity in full public view. Reputations will not benefit from the unedifying spectacle.
