Larry "the Chef" Zaitschek - come on... you couldn't make this stuff up!
Following on from my post from a couple of days ago, I was tipped off by "Tiggs" on UKC, where the NatWest three extradition is being debated, that according to Alun Jones QC representing the extraditees (is that a real word?) who was being interviewed on the BBC, it is Senators Kerry and Kennedy who are holding up ratification of the US-UK extradition treaty in the US Senate. Kerry and Kennedy - it's too clichéd to be true surely? I've been digging a bit on whether the "Irish Lobby" is really behind the resistance to the treaty's ratification and can't come up with much beyond the usual suspects in the British media who are willing to make allegations but haven't given huge amounts of evidence to back them up, such as Boris Johnson. I find Boris deeply, deeply annoying so would normally take anything he says with a pinch of salt but similar things are being said by theIndy's business columnist, Jeremy Warner, by the Guardian's pet compassionate conservative (I bet you didn't know they had one of them) Jesse Norman, and by Sir Menzies Campbell leader of the the Lib Dems.
Larry "the Chef" Zaitschek's walk-on cameo in this drama is that he is according to the British authorities is the only person that they have asked to be extradited from the US recently. He is accused of being involved in the break-in at Castlereagh Barracks in Northern Ireland in 2002. Castlereagh is an intelligence centre for the British Army in Northern Ireland and information stolen in the break-in related to informers in the IRA. The story is convoluted to say the least - many including the former Northern Irish Police chief Ronnie Flannagan said that it was an inside job involving "rogue elements" within in security forces. Then later it was decided it was the Provos after all. What Larry "the Chef" Zaitschek had to do with all this isn't apparent to the public - he got the nickname not because he has penchant for filleting his victims with a steak knife as any Soprano's fan might expect, but for a rather more mundane reason: he is a chef. Oddly the only Stakeknife in this story wasn't Larry's but MI5's.
All rather bizarre. If anyone is so inclined they can read more about Castlereagh and the unfortunate Larry/evil terrorist mastermind Zaitschek (delete as appropriate) here and here.
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5 comments:
What I really love about the Blair government is their willingness to deport UK citizens and their willingness to respect international law. In all countries conservatives (often same people who rant against criminal immigrants) tend to protect their own criminal countrymen and -women from extradition for nationalist reasons. In this case everyone can see that Britain is not ruled by narrow-minded conservatives and hopefully the NatWest crooks will face justice Texas-style. Go Britain!
Are the "Espoo boys" in your mind Helsinkian? ;-)
I remember once years ago when they played the theme of the Dallas tv series in YLE news and showed pictures of the Neste Tower in Espoo. The text in the screen said "ESPOO". If I remember anything from the 80s tv series, the guys in "Dallas" weren't too law-abiding.
Espoo boys, right, the kids who were returned to North Carolina. Sure I thought it was the right thing to do to return them to their home country. By returning them Finland can stand a chance to have people returned here if they are abducted to another country.
When I read "Espoo boys" I actually first came to think of the Espoo kids from well-to-do families who became famous after murdering in cold blood. That was of course a purely internal Finnish matter. I think they already have inspired a movie in Finland (if poor kids commit murder, that probably wouldn't inspire a movie, a documentary maybe).
Actually I thought you refering to was it some Neste executives who were implicated in breaking sanctions on Iraq but were never charged with anything? Phil had a rant about it on Finland for Thought I remember...
But yes I was refering to the kidnap/counter-kidnap kids!
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