Child sex crimes accused Shawn Sullivan not extradited to US due to human rights
Friday, June 29, 2012
12:23 PM
A man described as one of the US’s most wanted alleged sex criminals, who was arrested in London, is not being extradited because it could infringe his human rights.
The American government wants to extradite fugitive Shawn Sullivan, 43, so he can face child sex allegations.
But two judges sitting in London’s High Court allowed an appeal against extradition by Sullivan after the American authorities refused to give an assurance that he would not be placed on a controversial sex offenders’ treatment programme in Minnesota.
Sullivan, who was previously convicted of sexually assaulting two 12-year-old girls in Ireland, could be declared “sexually dangerous” and placed on the US programme without a trial and with no hope of release, his lawyers argued.
Lord Justice Moses and Mr Justice Eady ruled there was a real risk that, if extradited, Sullivan would be subjected to an order of civil commitment to the treatment programme in a “flagrant denial” of his human rights.
The judges then gave the US government a last opportunity to provide an assurance that there would be no commitment order made.
Today Lord Justice Moses announced it had been confirmed by the Americans in a post-judgment note that “the United States will not provide an assurance”, and Sullivan’s appeal under the 2003 Extradition Act was therefore allowed.
Sullivan, who has joint Irish-US nationality, is wanted to stand trial for allegedly abusing three American girls in the mid-1990s.
He was arrested in London in June 2010 while living with Ministry of Justice policy manager Sarah Smith, 34, in Barnes, south-west London.
They married while he was held at Wandsworth Prison, before he was granted bail.
His counsel Ben Brandon said at a one-day hearing in April that no one had been released from the treatment programme, operated by the Department of Human Services in Minnesota, since it began in its current form in 1988.
Commitment usually followed a person completing a prison sentence but a criminal conviction was not necessary for it to take place, said Mr Brandon.
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