Plea to save tycoon from ‘grotesque’ US extradition

PRITI PATEL is today urged to spare a British businessman from a ‘grotesque and unjust’ extradition to the United States.

The Home Secretary faced an impassioned call from Tory colleague and ex- Cabinet Minister David Davis to give billionaire Mike Lynch more time to fight his case.

Dr Lynch, founder of British software giant Autonomy, is at risk of forceable removal to the US after a court ruling last week.

Once dubbed Britain’s Bill Gates, he is accused of cooking the books at his former firm before it was sold to American giant HewlettPackard for £8 billion in 2011.

The 56-year-old vigorously denies the allegations and is fighting his extradition.

He now faces a nervous wait to see if the Home Secretary will agree to his removal after a judge in Westminster Magistrates’ Court last week ruled that he could be removed to the US to face trial.

But in an article, below, for The Mail on Sunday today, ex-Brexit Secretary Mr Davis rails against the unfairness of Britain’s extradition treaty with Washington and urges Ms Patel to stay her hand.

Mr Davis says he understands ‘ the need for justice and global security’, but laments that the UK is ‘one of the most amenable nations in the world to the surrender of its citizens to overseas courts’.

Mr Davis says: ‘ We have witnessed the human toll of this shocking imbalance over recent years, with the US, for example, making strenuous efforts to haul Britons before American courts.

‘On the other hand, our Government allows its foreign counterparts to obstruct us when we ask for their citizens to come here to stand trial.’

The ‘ most egregious current example’ is the US’s refusal to send intelligence officer Anne Sacoolas back to England after she was charged with causing death by dangerous driving over the death of teenage motorcyclist Harry Dunn on a road in Northamptonshire.

Only yesterday, it emerged that the US government had applied to keep Ms Sacoolas’s exact job secret in a civil court case in America filed by Mr Dunn’s parents.

Mr Davis appeals to Ms Patel to wait for the outcome of a separate High Court trial here examining t he f r aud al l egations against Dr Lynch.

He writes: ‘I, and many others, urge her not to submit to this grotesque and unjust process.’

But he also urges the Home Secretary to put all extraditions to the US and the EU on hold – apart from ‘serious violent and sexual offenders’ – until the ‘mess’ of Britain’s extradition system is reviewed.

Lawyers for Dr Lynch, who has hit out at the ‘insanity’ of the extradition treaty with the US, say he will appeal against last week’s court ruling and will also appeal if Ms Patel approved his removal.