Temperama

Northern Rocked

Commenting at the Westmorland Gazette, a Mr Douglas asks:

"Why are people panicking? Their money is safe, just listen to the news casts and experts. Their actions will only cause more problems. Northern Rock aren't the only bank to have a loan off the Bank Of England recently. People really need to wake up and stop being so gullible."

But it's not only in Kendal they're panicking. They're at it everywhere from Edinburgh to London, and all over that thing they call "the markets". How exciting. I'm learning more about subprimes and the global credit squeeze every day, albeit starting from a shockingly low base.

Fairness, Anyone?

Tax them, tax them, tax them.

Zorlu, The People Smuggler

Last night's Ten O'Clock News story about convicted people trafficker Ramazan Zorlu made my blood boil and run cold at the same time. Read more here and be sure to hit "watch" for desperate footage of the smuggled, though half-dead, fighting back against their exploiters. Terrifying.

Bail Wails

The Telegragh, also known as the "NatWest Three"'s other PR company, quotes the trio's UK lawyer Mark Spragg saying that David Bermingham, Giles Darby and Gary Mulgrew face bankruptcy as a result of not being allowed back into the UK during the couple of months before the start of their Enron-related fraud trial* in Houston for allegedly robbing their former employer of nearly £4 million. It also quotes Bermingham saying that this enforced stay in the USA would amount to "quite literally psychological torture."

What does this mean? Well, it means the poor, put-upon trio will have to pay for their children and wives to fly out there to see them instead of spending it on their own flights home and on the legal fees they would then be in a position to run up in Britain using every trick and delaying tactic in the book to avoid being sent back to Houston again. And those wives? Presumably they'd be the ones the martyr bankers missed so much during previous, happier stays in Houston that they were simply driven to entertain Enron executves at the city's Treasures strip club in order to take the pain of separation away.

The Three's real problem, according to the Times's more dispassionate report, was that the judge in the case, Stephen Smith, wasn't prepared to give them special treatment. "This court has never released a defendant to travel outside the United States," he said. It seems Bermingham, Derby and Mulgrew will have to sell some of the property they own in order to raise their bail stakes, which add up to about the same amount they are accused of stealing. Further restrictions include not being allowed to communicate with each other or to intimidate witnesses.

Plainly, Judge Smith saw no reason for being nicer to these three defendants than to any others, no matter how British they are or how white their collars. They have, though, been given permission to find employment. Their lawyers' quarrel with this appears to have been that their clients would be able to find only "manual labour" rather than the well-paid jobs they are used to. What a shame.

*[Here's the background to the case: US prosecutors issued warrants for the NW3 in 2002, accusing them of defrauding their former employer GreenWich NatWest by encouraging it to sell off a stake in a Cayman Islands-based Enron subsidiary at a discount. The Three then left GreeWich NatWest, bought a £134,000 stake in the subsidiary and made a profit of more than $7m by selling it on later. They claim they are innocent of "wire fraud".]

NatWest Tim?

Get this. One of the Telegraph Three offered his shares in Celtic FC during bail negotiations in Houston. Apparently, Gary Mulgrew was short of cash. Bless.

The Telegraph Three

While the Telegraph reports that the partners of the NatWest Three "want" to meet John Reid to ask him to ask the Americans if Bermingham, Darby and Mulgrew can spend part of their bail time in Britain - scoop! - the Guardian has seen a prosecution memo showing that the longest the bankers are likely to spend in jail is about one third the time their supporters claim.

"Campaigners have repeatedly claimed that under sentencing guidelines, they face 23 years without parole if convicted, far longer than they could expect in Britain. However, the prosecution memo, lodged on Friday at Houston's federal court, says that based on the size of the alleged fraud, 'the defendants, if convicted, face a potential sentencing range under the US sentencing guidelines of seven to nine years' incarceration'."

Moreover:

"It also discloses that two corrupt executives at the top of Enron have turned supergrass and provided sworn statements saying the three Britons knowingly colluded in the financial wrongdoing which surrounded the now defunct energy trading empire."

As for the unbalanced extradition arrangement being used by cheerleaders for these three filthy-rich men to divert attention from the strengthening case against them, here's some earlier thoughts on that - with interesting comments attached - from a Texas-based lawyer and more recently from the same source, a closing suggestion that Mr Blair may have been right to anticipate during last Wednesday's PMQs that the Brits would get a softer ride than American Enron-related defendants have. Oh, for a friend like George?

Bad Treaty, Yes. But Maybe Bad Boys Too.

A Guardian leader says what needs to be said about Bermingham, Mulgrew and Darby.

Diddums?

Whatever you think about the state of our extradition arrangements with the United States, how much sympathy do the so-called "NatWest 3" - David Bermingham, Gary Mulgrew and Giles Darby - really deserve as they jet across the pond to be tried by a court in Texas as part of the Enron prosecutions? Not much, according to Edward Heathcoat Amory in this ferocious commentary in the Mail.

"As a campaign of special pleading, it’s hard to remember its equal. Civil liberties campaigners have joined forces with City magnates to insist that the Government intervene to stop these three capitalist martyrs being dragged from the arms of their children to an American chain gang. To my mind, rarely has more influence been deployed in such an unworthy cause. The sooner these three are extradited to the United States and appear in a court to answer the charges against them, the better. If Britain, for whatever reason, is unable or unwilling to prosecute, we should be thrilled that America is prepared to do it for us. Amid the welter of special pleading, the facts of the case against these three have been largely forgotten."

Heathcoat Amory goes on to describe the "close relationship" between the three and Andrew Fastow, Enron's finance director and what flowed from it.

"The alleged fraud involving the NatWest Three was complex, as such matters always are. The Britons are alleged to have persuaded Greenwich NatWest to sell its stake in a Cayman Islands investment company at a knockdown price to a small, independent company controlled by Fastow. Shortly afterwards, the three men left NatWest. The minute they were out the door, they bought shares in Fastow's company which now controlled the NatWest assets. Shortly after that, Fastow sold the business to his own firm, Enron, for more than ten times what NatWest had been paid. The three Britons each netted $2.3m (£1.1m) which they argue was perfectly legitimate. Fastow filled his boots as well."

He concludes:

"They may be acquitted, in which case they can return home without a blemish on their characters. But perhaps not, in which case we should raise a glass to the Americans for having the moral, social and legal courage to tackle a class of criminals who we in Britain never seem to manage to put behind bars."

So bruising an attack on (alleged) white collar hood(ie)s in a paper which relentlessly perpetuates particular middle-class values may not be unrelated to the Mail's deadly Tory rival supporting the in-flight bankers unstintingly. It is, nonetheless, a powerful reminder that the charges these men face are deeply serious and, if proven, will show them to be nothing but a greedy bunch of skunks who could only be improved by a few years of prison food.