Over this past weekend, it was confirmed that Britain had revoked the visas of fugitive former Thai prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, and his wife – barring them from re-entering the UK. The billionaire had been living in London after skipping bail in August to avoid corruption charges in Thailand. On Monday, the Reuters news agency tracked him down to Beijing, where he said he was to “keep travelling”.
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Legal experts agree that Mr Thaksin could easily be brought back to face justice in Thailand – if the government was serious about doing so.
Paul Garlick QC is an extradition lawyer based in London, who represented the former directors of the YUKOS oil company in their extradition proceedings to Russia. Adam Connors asks him why did both the UK and China, who both have extradition agreements with Thailand, let him go?
Talent: Paul Garlick QC, international and cross-border crime lawyer for Outer Temple Chambers, London.
PAUL GARLICK, QC, EXTRADITION LAWYER, LONDON: Well, that would depend on the extradition treaties that they’ve agreed with with Thailand. In every extradition treaty the two countries enter into a bilateral agreement, (and) there are terms and conditions regulating extradition. Now corruption, by and large, is an extradition crime throughout the world because under all the various international conventions corruption seems to be an extradition crime. Although I’m not an expert in Chinese law, I would be very surprised if the extraditional arrangement or treaty between China and Thailand did not include corruption as an extradition offence. Now, so far as the practicalities are concerned, for example, under some bilateral agreements the requesting state, which would be Thailand here, would have to provide a prima facie case, they have to provide evidence to the requested state – that’s the country being asked to surrender the fugitive – in this case it would be China. So you’ve got to look at that particular treaty, see what the provisions are between those two countries and see whether they can be applied in the particular case.
ADAM CONNORS, REPORTER: So this process, I suppose, would take a while, which is why you can’t really hit a moving target in this respect?
PAUL GARLICK, QC: Well, you can hit a moving target because if you know where someone’s going or where they’re about to arrive, for example if they’re on an aeroplane, you can apply to the requested state very quickly for a provisional warrant of arrest so that when the plane touches down they can be arrested, and then you start the extradition proceedings immediately.
ADAM CONNORS: What do you assume is the hold-up? Is the Thai government not able to track where Mr Thaksin is moving?
PAUL GARLICK, QC: It may well be under the extraditional arrangement between Thailand and China they have to provide prima facie evidence and they just can’t do that quickly.
ADAM CONNORS: If Mr Thaksin was to quickly move from China, which he is certainly able to do, and move to one of these countries that don’t have an extradition treaty with Thailand, does he then disappear off the radar, so to speak?
PAUL GARLICK, QC: If he moved to a country where there was no extraditional arrangement with Thailand he would go off the radar so far as extradition is concerned, but, of course, as soon as he moved out of that country and that safe haven, he would be liable to extradition from any country he went to. And, in my experience, fugitives, particularly important dignitaries like this, when they go into exile, there comes a time when they want to go somewhere and that’s the time when the requesting state moves. They put out an international arrest warrant through Interpol, so most countries will have him on the computer, and if he ever decides to land in that country and if there is an extradition arrangement he could be arrested on a provisional warrant and Thailand could make their application.
ADAM CONNORS: Mr Thaksin carries two passports, one with a diplomatic stamp in it – a red passport from what I understand – and a normal passport. If Thailand was to cancel both of those passports, does that mean that Mr Thaksin would very much have to stay off the radar even in the country where he currently is?
PAUL GARLICK, QC: He definitely would. In fact, even if you have a diplomatic passport, you can still be extradited because the territory that granted your diplomatic passport can revoke it at any time and can also waive the diplomatic privileges that it carries with it. So, in this case, Thailand only has to make an extradition, saying, “We revoke his diplomatic status,” and his diplomatic passport could never protect it.
