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Casee1240/fR00RR0HASN Ads uPAeht /LOZ 1 FIleckasO 972g ePageb 1G
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her intent not to flee. (Dec. Op. at 13 n.2). The Court recognized that “a defendant could
strategically offer to waive the right to extradition while intending to resist any subsequent
extradition that might result.” (/d.). So too here. An offer to renounce her foreign citizenship
“Ts|hould the Court feel this drastic condition is necessary,” (Mot. at 4) is another strategic, but
hollow offer given that the defendant would be free to fight extradition once in the United Kingdom
or France, or any other jurisdiction of her choosing (i.e., the one to which she chooses to flee).
As such, the defendant’s claimed “willing[ness]” to renounce her citizenship in both the
United Kingdom and France is little more than window dressing. After receiving the defendant’s
Third Bail Motion, the Government, through the Department of Justice’s Office of International
Affairs (“OIA”), contacted the French Ministry of Justice (“MOJ”) to understand the impact of the
defendant’s offer to renounce her French citizenship on France’s categorical unwillingness to
deport its own citizens for crimes they have committed. In response, the MOJ provided the
Government with a letter setting forth the relevant law and conclusively indicating that the
defendant’s offer to waive her French citizenship will not make her eligible to be extradited from
France because, for purposes of extradition, nationality is assessed as of the time the charged
offense was committed. That letter in its original French, as well as an English translation of the
letter, are attached hereto as Exhibit A. See Ex. A (“[A]ny loss of nationality subsequent to said
offense has no bearing upon the removal proceedings and shall not supersede said assessment of
nationality.”); see also Dkt. No. 100, Ex. B at 3 (MOJ letter stating that the French Code of
Criminal Procedure “absolutely prohibits the extradition of a person who had French nationality
at the time of the commission of the acts for which extradition is requested”). The defendant’s
renunciation of her French citizenship in 2021 would not change the fact that she was a French
citizen at the time she is alleged to have committed the charged crimes in the 1990s and 2016. As
such, the defendant’s citizenship at the time of the alleged crimes would bar her extradition from
France, making her offer to renounce her French citizenship meaningless.
Meanwhile, the defendant’s offer to give up her British citizenship does not mean that she
will not fight extradition once in the United Kingdom or that an extradition request to the United
Kingdom would be successful. The Government understands from OJA that a defendant’s
nationality has historically played little to no role in extradition from the United Kingdom. Indeed,
Article 3 of the 2003 Extradition Treaty between the United States and the United Kingdom
expressly prohibits using nationality as a basis to deny _ extradition. See
https://www.congress.gov/108/cdoc/tdoc23/CDOC-108tdoc23.pdf at 5 (“Extradition shall not be
refused based on the nationality of the person sought.”); see also Crown Prosecution Service,
Extradition, Legal Guidance, International and organised crime (May 12, 2020),
https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/extradition (setting forth the statutory bars to extradition,
which do not include nationality). In any event, assuming the Government could locate and
apprehend the defendant if she were to flee, as set forth in the Government’s opposition to the
Second Bail Motion, a judge in the United Kingdom must make an independent decision on
extradition based on the circumstances at the time the defendant is before the court, including the
passage of time, forum, and considerations of the individual’s mental or physical condition. The
Government understands from OJA that extradition from the United Kingdom is frequently
extensively litigated, uncertain, and subject to multiple levels of appeal. This process is lengthy,
complicated, and time-consuming, and would provide no measure of justice to the victims who
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Document Details
| Filename | DOJ-OGR-00001248.jpg |
| File Size | 1275.3 KB |
| OCR Confidence | 94.8% |
| Has Readable Text | Yes |
| Text Length | 4,127 characters |
| Indexed | 2026-02-03 16:10:39.171384 |