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THE REASONS WOULD BE VITIATED BY ERRORS OF LAW
It is contended that the reasons on which the refusal to extradite Mr Saniman is based are vitiated by errors of law.
The reproached facts would constitute escroqueries under French law.
It is necessary to recall that the decision to refuse to extradite Mr Rais Bin Saniman was made on two reasons of a legal nature.
The first of these reasons is that some facts amongst those submitted to the revision of the Court of Appeal of Versailles had already been examined by the Chambre d'Accusation of Paris which had issued a negative advice. This advice is binding on the Government.
The second reason is that the facts which were not submitted to the appraisal of the Court of Appeal of Paris and in respect of which the Chambre d'Accusation of Versailles issued a positive advice, do not constitute escroqueries in French law and do not have a criminal characterisation within the limitative list of the Franco-British treaty applicable in the case at stake.
The assessment of the legal characterisation depends on the presentation of the facts with which the person to be extradited has been reproached. According to the presentation made by the requesting State, they would constitute
escroqueries.
But it is by reading the statement of facts, as set out only in the documents joined to the request for extradition by the judicial authorities of the requesting State, that the requested State must decide whether the reproached offenses are punishable under French law and if those are amongst that provided for in the list of the offenses permitting extradition in the above-mentioned treaty.
Further to the documents supplied to the French Government, it was stated that Mr Saniman was an alternate director of Bimutra Malaysia Finance Ltd (BMFL), and that between 1979 and 1983, such bank granted material loans to a group of companies, the Georges Tan/Carrian group, without any adequate assessment of the borrowers, of their repayment abilities, of the viability of the operations or of the security given, some of the borrowers, members of the Georges Tan group, being without any substantial assets.
The facts were grouped under twenty-three counts of indictment.
The Chambre d'Accusation of the Court of Appeal of Paris issued on 4th November 1987 an advice opposing the extradition for those facts which were then characterised as theft and forgery of accounts, considering that they constituted misuses of corporate assets not punishable under French law and forgery of commercial documents with which Mr Saniman could not personally be reproached.
In support of the second request for extradition, the Government of Hong Kong raised, on the one hand, counts of indictment not previously referred to and, on the other hand, in respect of the facts referred to in the first request, new elements relating to the facts, to the duties of Mr Saniman and to his presence in Hong Kong.
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