ASSN
A
B
C
D.
E
F
G
H
be appropriate for the court in performing the balancing
exercise to bear in mind that the balancing exercise at the
actual criminal trial may not be identical to that on an
application connected with extradition where the issue is not
whether the applicant is guilty or not guilty of the crime, but
whether there is a prima facie case of criminal conduct
justifying the applicant's removal from this country to face a
Considerations of this sort however will only be
trial abroad.
of assistance in cases where the balance between the conflicting
interests is nearly equal. This is far from being the
situation here.
This court, presided over by Mann L.J. has considered
similar applications by Mr. Osman on two occasions and, when
presided over by Leggatt J., has considered one similar
application.
We are prepared to assume that the judgments on
those applications do not create an issue estoppel because Mr.
Osman now is relying on the additional evidence which gives rise
to the substantive applications. However, notwithstanding
this, we find the reasoning of Leggatt J. in the earliest of the
three judgments and of Mann L.J. in the other two judgments as
still being very persuasive as to what should be the outcome of
the present application for production of documents.
pointed out in those cases that the documents which had been
exhibited do not provide a springboard pointing to the existence
of other documents likely to contain anything to suggest that
the accusations made against the applicant are not made in good
faith in the interests of justice, and the same is true here.
It was
Although we would have been prepared to inspect the Foreign
and Commonwealth Office documents, if this had been appropriate,
in the same way as we inspected the other documents, we are
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