Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to navigation
David McIntyre extradition
Lawyers for Dave McIntyre, who served in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Afghanistan, argue extradition to the US would amount to 'torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment'. Photograph: PA
Lawyers for Dave McIntyre, who served in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Afghanistan, argue extradition to the US would amount to 'torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment'. Photograph: PA

Former British soldier takes extradition fight to European court of human rights

This article is more than 9 years old
Dave McIntyre, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, faces extradition to US on fraud charges

A former British soldier is to take his fight to avoid extradition to the US on fraud charges to the European court of human rights, his lawyers have said.

Lawyers acting for Dave McIntyre, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and has been assessed as a high suicide risk, will argue that sending him to the US would amount to "torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" in a last-ditch attempt to block his removal.

They point to evidence presented to the high court of the likelihood that he would be subjected to the controversial electric shock therapy by US authorities.

On Tuesday two high court judges decided McIntyre should be extradited to face charges related to a contract he had with a US institution in Baghdad as the owner of a private security firm.

McIntyre, who served with the Queen's Lancashire Regiment, is accused by US authorities of overcharging a US national security institution by £66,000 for work he carried out as a contractor in 2009 in Baghdad.

The US authorities want him to stand trial on eight charges of fraud relating to a contract between the firm Quantum Risk and the US Institute of Peace, which seeks to prevent conflicts outside America. He denies the accusations and wants to stand trial in the UK.

McIntyre, who has served in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Afghanistan, said he feared being placed in solitary confinement in the US, as well as the prospect of spending two decades in prison.

"I am worried about going over there because I think I won't be coming back. I have a row of medals on my chest, I hope the government will say we are not sending him to America for £66,000. And I don't want to lose my family," he told the Guardian.

He added that, having large parts of his life abroad on service, he was now a "home bird" and a family man.

Evidence presented to the high court in London by a US criminologist suggested that, were McIntyre to be extradited, any deterioration in his mental health would be likely to be treated with electroconvulsive therapy because of strict cost constraints.

He added that it was likely McIntyre would be restrained and shackled during transport, with leg irons and a body chain used to hold him.

Joel Sickler said McIntyre, 43, was unlikely to be granted bail in the US and would probably be held in a prison at which there was "significant evidence of neglect of inmates with mental conditions and of a number of suicides".

However, although Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas and Mr Justice Cranston, sitting in the high court, said the conditions McIntyre was to be kept in should be a matter for the Home Office, they ruled that they should not be a bar to his extradition.

They said they did not consider his likely treatment would constitute torture or inhuman or degrading treatment, in breach of his human rights.

And Lord Thomas said there was no conceivable basis on which an application in the case could be made to the supreme court, meaning the application to the European court is likely to be McIntyre's last chance to avoid extradition.

In a letter to McIntyre, his solicitor Michael Evans of Kaim Todner wrote: "The full application will essentially be in the same terms as we fought the extradition on here in the UK, namely that to send you to the US would amount to a breach of … Article 3 [of the] European convention on human rights and that the breach cannot be remedied once you have left Europe as the [European court] has no jurisdiction outside" the continent.

He added that the firm was going to ask the European court of human rights to put the extradition, which is due to take place from 23 June, on hold while his application to have his case heard is considered.

McIntyre was serving as a Royal Military Police Territorial Army sergeant at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan in July 2012 when he was flown home to face extradition proceedings.

At his high court hearing in March, the US authorities opposed McIntyre's bid to block the planned extradition.

McIntyre's supporters have said of the extradition threat: "Is this really the way Britain should be treating its brave soldiers?"

Most viewed

Most viewed