Peter Adekeye Freed, Judge Outraged At Cisco's Involvement 271
puppetman writes "Ars Technica has an article relating the recent release of Peter Adekeye, a former Cisco employee who was arrested in Canada on trumped-up charges that appear to have been fabricated by Cisco. Slashdot covered the story back in April, 2011, during which time Mr Adekeye was still being detained. In the ruling, the judge squashed the US extradition request, rebuked both the Canadian and American authorities for 'an appalling abuse of process,' and goes as far as to say that the criminal proceeding was launched on behalf of Cisco, to mirror the civil proceedings that Mr Adekeye had launched against the powerful Cisco." The full judgement (PDF) is quite readable and damning.
So (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Yay. (Score:5, Interesting)
The current judgement was only to apply the 'stay of proceedings' on the extradition request, as that was what the client sought. It appears Mr. Adekeye will be launching a claim against Cisco, and hopefully this will get the mainstream media on the story.
He's been trying to enter the U.S. for years, but would not break visa (which has also apparently been used against him, and Cisco attemting contempt of court pleadings even though they very clearly knew exactly why he was not there, and where he was.
Claiming he was a Nigerian citizen pretending to travel under a U.K. password and 'claiming to live in Switzerland'. This lie was repeated during the extradition request to the Canadian authorities, even though his completely valid U.K. passport had very recently spent 5 weeks in the London U.S. Embassy, a fact that was also known to Cisco and presumably Cisco's councel.
If the U.S. authorities wanted him arrested, the easiest way would have been to respond to one of his multiple and very recent requests to enter the U.S.
There's a lot more, if someone else who read the whole thing could respond with more highlights, that'd probably be informative.
In conclusion, what seems to have happened here is that Cisco, in retaliation for a lawsuit against them, has colluded illegally with the U.S. Justice Department on using deceit and lies, abuse of process and every legal bullshit tactic the nastiest lawyer team from hell could think up to put the defendant under maximum legal pressure since a company he is involved with had the audacity to sue Cisco. Oh, and the settlement in the lawsuit seems to have favored said company and not Cisco.
This is so nasty I'll be demanding a written response from Cisco on what measures they are taking to ensure this never happens again if I am to be in conscience ever to recommend a Cisco product again.
And I hope his suit for damages (and hopefully punitive damage) gets the attention it deserves and that he is awarded ample millions and Cisco and the Department of Justice a public and very heavy black eye. This is behavior we cannot accept from corporations or anyone.
Re:Yay. (Score:5, Interesting)
Corporate Death Penalty and Billion Dollars in Penalties, arresting all senior officers and the Board of Directors. The Buck stops THERE.
extradition cases (Score:5, Interesting)
linuxrocks points out that Canadian courts will look at this precedent, even if American's don't.
however the DOJ has to deal with courts in other countries. especially in extradition cases, of course.
cases like this are embarassements. when other countries completely trash our justice system, it looks bad, it makes the US look bad, and it makes the president look bad. this is not some crazy anti-american judge in a dictatorship, this is an ordinary canadian judge, whose justice system largely derives from the same source (english common law) as ours does.
its not just about the precedent in US law... the DOJ has to look at what a Canadian court is likely to do, before it orders extradition. So the US prosecutors will be looking at the history of Canadian law, and deciding whether or not they have a chance of extraditing someone, before they spend all of the time and money, and risk embarassing losses, to actually try to do it.
Re:Yay. (Score:5, Interesting)
In short; this is corruption at a very high level. Corruption of the DOJ by a large corporation. Corruption of the legal process itself.
In a civilized nation there would be retaliation against those involved. Let's see how the US handles this.