Anger over extradition of remand prisoner

(First Edition)

A POLITICAL row was brewing yesterday over the way in which the Home Secretary finally succeeded in extraditing Lorrain Osman, Britain's longest-serving remand prisoner.

Neither his family nor lawyers were warned before the Malaysian-born banker was put on a flight to Hong Kong on Tuesday night after a final, failed application to the Law Lords.

Wanted in the colony on multi-million pound fraud charges, Mr Osman, 60, spent seven years in Brixton jail while lawyers fought to halt his expulsion. Yesterday, he was detained by police on arrival the colony.

His family, who live in north London, and his lawyers were outraged that they were not forewarned. Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour MP for Islington North, said he would raise the extradition with Kenneth Clarke, the Home Secretary. 'It is disgusting that someone should be deported without even his family or his lawyers being told,' he said.

He was visited in prison by his lawyers at 7pm on Tuesday and was on a flight just over two hours later.

Mr Osman was arrested in 1985 and committed in 1987 to await extradition on 42 charges later reduced to 39 of theft, corruption and conspiracy to defraud. They relate to the collapse in 1983 of the shipping and property group Carrian Investments, which left debts of hundreds of millions of pounds.

Mr Osman was non-executive chairman of Carrian's biggest creditor, Bumiputra Malaysia Finance Ltd. It is alleged that BMFL made loans to Carrian without proper security.