THE NatWest Three, after three years in the long shadow cast by Enron, were last night coming to terms with the prospect of up to four more years in limbo.

David Bermingham, Gary Mulgrew and Giles Darby face a maximum of 25 years in jail if a court in Houston, Texas, finds them guilty of the seven counts of illegally gaining money through international banking systems that each is facing.

However, the three plan to exhaust the remaining appeal options open to them by going to the House of Lords and, if necessary, to the European Court of Human Rights, after the High Court decided not to repeal an earlier ruling by the Home Secretary that they should face trial for fraud in Texas.

Mr Mulgrew claimed that the remaining appeal options could take between “three months and three years” and said that he and his co-defendants could be forced to stay in Houston’s maximum security federal detention centre for more than a year before the case begins.

His claims are based on research into the case by Douglas McNabb, head of McNabb Associates, the US criminal defence law firm, which has been backed by leading Wall Street lawyers.

Mr Mulgrew added that the case would cost each of them between $1.5 million (£860,000) and $2 million, which would not be refundable if they won the case. Each has already run up a seven-figure legal bill.

Mr Mulgrew said: “I have 36 witnesses, most of them in the UK. I will need a legal team in London and in Texas and witnesses will need to be flown to America.”

Like Mr Bermingham and Mr Darby, Mr Mulgrew yesterday maintained his innocence and said that he had no intention of pleading guilty, even though he estimated that this could potentially reduce his sentence, if convicted, to between three and five years.

The Houston detention centre has strict rules. If the men are extradited they would be unable to use a computer or the internet at the centre in the run-up to the trial.

Bail would be extremely unlikely since they would be regarded as fugitives, the trio claimed.

The detention centre is in downtown Houston and pre- trial inmates can receive social visits only from their immediate family under stringent conditions.

'TERRORISTS ARE BETTER PROTECTED'

Lawyers strongly attacked yesterday’s ruling, giving warning that it was a “wake-up call” to anyone doing business with the United States

FRANCES GIBB

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