US steps up diplomatic pressure on UK to extradite solicitor over fraud

MONEY LAUNDERING: New York District Attorney's office casts doubt on reasons for delay

The US government is pressurising the Home Office to decide whether former solicitor Andrew Rutherford Warren should be extradited to the US following his indictment for money laundering there in 1999.

Mr Warren and Stuart Creggy - both former partners with now-defunct London firm Talbot Creggy & Co - were arrested in London in 1998 following a joint UK and US investigation into money laundering.

Mr Creggy lives on bail in the US; his trial is set to take place in New York this September.

Mr Warren was indicted in New York in June 1999.

In July 2000, UK magistrates agreed to Mr Warren's extradition, but his lawyer - Steven Barker of London firm Barker Gillette - wrote to the then Home Secretary, Jack Straw, explaining why he should not send Mr Warren to the US.

It is understood that Mr Warren claims to suffer from acute depression.

The Gazette has now learnt that the US state department has sent a diplomatic note - via the US Embassy in London - to the Home Office, asking it to decide whether Mr Warren should be extradited.

A senior source in the New York District Attorney's (NYDA) office, which is understood to be impatient at the delay, said: 'I don't think there's been one of these notes sent in the last few years - this is very much out of the ordinary.'

A Home Office spokeswoman said: 'We are in touch with the US authorities and are awaiting advice on further issues.

We are anxious to make a final decision as soon as possible.'

However, the NYDA source said: 'They aren't waiting for advice.

There is a rule in social science that delay is a form of denial.'

Mr Warren has been accused of being a member of a criminal enterprise which - with Mr Creggy - violated securities, banking and tax laws, using bogus corporations which had been set up in offshore jurisdictions including Liberia, Malta and Belize.

The alleged frauds brought in more than $20 million.

Jeremy Fleming