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Richard, just 23, is accused of copyright infringement by US authorities for hosting a website offering links to downloadable pirate films and TV shows. Not actual material – just links. He built the site from his Sheffield bedroom and his computer server was not even based in America. Yet still he faces being dragged across the Atlantic for trial now the Home Secretary has approved his extradition. If removed Richard will become the first British citizen extradited to America because of copyright laws.

Liberty’s event – Extradition Watch: Richard’s Story – will be held at the Stoddart Lecture Theatre at Sheffield Hallam University’s City Campus. It will be chaired by Director of Liberty Shami Chakrabarti and feature speakers including Richard’s mother Julia and Liberty’s Director of Policy Isabella Sankey. Academic and I.T. business owner Jessica Zeun and Jawed Siddiqi, Emeritus Professor of Software Engineering at the university, complete the panel line-up.

Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty, said: “The O’Dwyers are yet another ordinary British family swept up in the injustice of instant extradition and Liberty wants to help highlight their nightmare.
 
“No-one should be sent anywhere without a basic case tested in a local court and our judges should have discretion to try people at home, especially when they never left their homes, let alone this country, in the first place.
 
“The Prime Minister has promised a review. The Deputy Prime Minister is a Sheffield MP. We need local people to come out and support a fair trial for Richard in South Yorkshire.”

Liberty’s Extradition Watch: Richard’s Story event runs from 6.30pm-8pm on Thursday, 29^th March 2012. People can book their free ticket now by visiting http://extraditionwatch-richardsstory.eventbrite.co.uk/

Contact: Liberty Press Office on 020 7378 3656 or 07973 831128

NOTES TO EDITORS:

1. If you are a member of the press and interested in attending and covering the event please contact the Liberty Press Office on 020 7378 3656 or 07973 831128.

2. Liberty’s Extradition Watch campaign demands:

- That a person should not be sent to stand trial in a foreign court without a basic case first being presented in a British court;

- If the crime is alleged to have occurred in whole or part in the UK, then extradition should not occur if a British court decides it is not in the interests of justice to extradite;

- A person in the UK should not be extradited for something that is not a crime in the UK;

- For more information on Liberty’s Extradition Watch campaign, please visit www.extraditionwatch.co.uk.

3. In 2006, amendments were made to the Extradition Act that would allow a UK court to bar extradition on the basis of "forum", giving UK judges greater power to decide on the basis of each individual case whether it is appropriate to order extradition. Yet these provisions have never been brought into force. When the law was introduced as an Opposition amendment in 2006 the previous Government only agreed to it after introducing a ‘killing clause’ – ensuring that the law could not be brought into force unless both Houses of Parliament passed a resolution to do so. The previous Government never intended to bring it into force – the then Home Secretary the Rt Hon Jon Reid MP was explicit about this when he said: “The Government are not, of course, obliged to bring forward such a resolution, and have no intention of doing so“. If each House of Parliament passes a resolution to bring the forum amendment into force, then the Home Secretary must make a commencement order. This order must bring the provisions into force within one month of the resolutions being made.

4. Read Liberty’s two submissions to the Joint Committee on Human Rights’ inquiry into the human rights implications of UK extradition policy:

- http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/pdfs/policy11/liberty-submission-to-jchr-extradition-inquiry-january-2011.pdf

- http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/pdfs/policy11/liberty-s-additional-submission-to-the-jchr-extradition-inquiry-april-2011-.pdf