Quote:24/02/2010 13:44
Businessman loses extradition battle - Telegraph
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Businessman loses extradition battle
An ailing former businessman faces extradition to the US within weeks after losing a human rights
battle in the Supreme Court.

By Tom Whitehead (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/tom-whitehead/) , Home Affairs Editor
Published: 1:15PM GMT 24 Feb 2010

Ian Norris, the 67-year-old retired chief executive of Morgan Crucible, is fighting a request by America who want to
charge him with obstructing justice. Britain's top court dismissed an appeal on Wednesday.
His lawyers said the extradition arrangements between the two countries stripped citizens of "fundamental protections"
and now hope to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.
As a result, it is unlikely Mr Norris will be sent to America until a decision is made on whether the European Court will
hear the case.
The case comes as computer hacker Gary McKinnon continues his fight against extradition to America.
Mr Norris won a ruling in 2008 from the then House of Lords that blocked his removal to the US on price-fixing
charges.
But the US government pursued him over related charges of obstructing justice and was successful in the lower UK
courts.
In November last year Mr Norris appealed against those rulings to the new Supreme Court, arguing that extradition
would cause such damage to his and his wife's mental and physical health that it would be incompatible with his right
to private and family life under the European Convention on Human Rights.
The Supreme Court unanimously dismissed his appeal on the grounds that any interference to his family life did not
outweigh public interest.
Jonathan Sumption QC, for Mr Norris, had argued that it would not serve the interests of preventing crime to extradite
"a sick, retired man of 66 whose wife suffers from a severe depressive episode, so that he may face a subsidiary
charge of obstructing a United States investigation of price-fixing".
He said the "main stuffing" of the case against Mr Norris had been knocked out by the previous decision of the House
of Lords in his case.
The effect of extradition would be a "disproportionate interference" with the right to a private and family life for Mr
Norris and his wife under the European Convention on Human Rights.
Mr Norris and his wife, Sheila, 65, have been together for 50 years and are both in poor health.
The court heard that Mr Norris was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2000 and although it was now in remission he
suffers from many health problems and was reliant upon his wife for his daily nursing needs.