Examinator do you really condone unlimited remand when fighting extradition which is everybody’s right? Do you also then presume all people facing selling chemicals to the USA to be guilty before trial?

And last would you accept the loss of 5 children to care and the loss of your wife, home, business and a further 3 years on remand in the Arizona desert before trial knowing you do not have any chance of winning because once US Marshals have you on US soil the offence for selling the chemicals is 20 years per sale, so would you accept that for an Australian citizen?

Belly we sold up to 60 different chemicals the 2 chemicals in question are not even the main ingredients for drugs as the drug meth needs 11 different chemicals all available in the USA in one form or another.

The chemicals are not illegal in the USA but are supposed to be registered. The legal advice we were given was it was the responsibility of the customer to make sure our chemicals did not get misused.

Foxy we never sold drugs online we sold Legal chemicals for amateur pyrotechnic use still legal in most of the world. With a 97% plea bargain rate and a wife as a bargaining tool I think they know they have a case but it is a case of what the US wants the US gets.

Innocent until proven guilty has surely vanished if allowed to be imprisoned and lives destroyed before a trial has ever been started.

CJ Morgan how do we have a defence when the chemicals carry 20 years for selling them in the USA? Once on US soil the crime that is not a crime here in the UK can’t be won because we say well it’s legal in the UK.

I am not very good with words and I am also aware of only being able to post 4 times in 24 hours so if the reply takes this long it is because I probably do not have any posts left

Here's a link to the indictment that Brian Howes faces if extradited to the USA:

http://tiny.cc/jzxYg

I suggest that people read it before feeling too much sympathy for Mr Howes. It's pretty damning. Perhaps Mr Howes and his partner should have thought about their children's welfare before selling precursor chemicals in "discreet" packaging to criminals in the USA and elsewhere.

I am irritated by this topic, not that I am without sympathy Brian, if what you present is true, however I am in complete agreement with CJ Morgan's and Belly's views for the reasons they have stated.

I also understand your fear of being extradited to Arizona (having lived there) - being a Republican state it is zero tolerance on illegal drugs.

On the topic of Miscarriage of Justice I am far more outraged by an appalling situation that has occurred to a young couple right here on Australian shores (so much for believing that Australian justice is somehow fairer).

"For the first time in more than two decades a Queensland couple will appear in court on abortion charges.

Tegan Leach, 19, was charged with procuring a miscarriage after police searched her Cairns home in February on an unrelated matter.

Her 21-year-old partner, Sergie Brennan, was charged with supplying drugs or instruments to procure an abortion.

The prosecution had relied mostly on statements and interviews with the couple after their home was searched in February.

During the search, police found two blister packets that were empty and two empty sachets that had contained powder.

Those items were labelled as mifolian and misoprostol, which are both known abortion drugs, but both those sets of packets were empty so the items could not be tested.

In police interviews and statements the couple admitted Brennan had arranged for his sister to send two sets of drugs from Russia."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/09/11/2683030.htm

Abortion is supposed to be legal in Australia, however only if administered by a qualified medic. While abortifacient drugs are available by prescription, procuring such without prescription is not what the couple have been charged with - they have been charged with terminating an unwanted pregnancy.

I have no idea why Forrest is so gung ho about your case and not a local issue, whose miscarriage of justice is far more apparent than the questions surrounding your case.

CJ Morgan: first you seem to assume an allegations in an indictment from Arizona is an evidential document but far from it as evidence is not supplied to a US grand jury just hearsay!

CJ Morgan you also seem to be dragged in to the false information in the indictment as if all US indictments are truthful when they only represent what the prosecutor told the Grand jury.

CJ Morgan how is packaging discreet if it includes a return address, VAT # phone number and all contact details.

CJ Morgan you are some sort of administrator as you do not only have 4 posts per 24 hours, but you seem to have from what you have said so far as taking in all information you see in our indictments and accept it as true.

That assumption would be in line with the USA having a perfect justice system when most of us know that the US are so powerful that they are able to torture people and get away with it, they also have several detention camps in parts of the world that I can not mention that torture people.

CJ Morgan Do you think that without evidence shown from the USA an Australian should be extradited to the USA as in our case or do you really consider an indictment that has been put to a grand jury without any evidence to be enough to destroy Australian lives like ours. Yes Morgan is there a difference to the justice that Australians get more than UK citizens deserve?

CJ Morgan I wonder if one or more of your family members had been dragged out of bed arrested on a US warrant without any evidence, refused bail and only given bail after a 30 day hunger strike on the 214th day of Illegal remand. Would you accept that as part of the US extradition treaty with Australia? Also Mr Morgan are you so blind as not to see the UK / US treaty is wrong? Have you read it? Do you understand it? And are you biased in some way? Goodnight.

Fractelle says:

"I have no idea why Forrest is so gung ho
about your case and not a local issue,
whose miscarriage of justice is far more
apparent than the questions surrounding your case."

The answer, Fractelle, is simply that I did not know beforehand about the entirely separate issue upon which you have now posted.

There is also an assertion embedded within your quote that Brian Howes' case is not a local issue. That assertion is wrong.

The Howes case is a local issue because an Australian has already recently been extradited to the US without there having been any extradition hearing first, in Australia, before that extradition took place. As will, either shortly or at length, become plain, that extradition without hearing of Hew Griffiths to the US was to do with matters related to internet technology, technological protective measures, and intellectual property rights maintainance, issues that it will be shown also lie behind the likely 'fitting-up' of Brian Howes with drug-related indictments by US authorities.

The Howes' case is also a local issue because they are also alleged by the US authorities to have knowingly supplied methamphetamine precursor chemicals to criminals in Australia, in connection with which allegations the Howes', strangely, themselves have requested extradition to Australia for trial.

I am 'gung ho' about these local issues because they may well, left unchallenged, come to threaten the workability of this very means of truly 'free press' communication, as, for example, OLO itself.

I did seek to have your post taken down and re-established as a topic in its own right. GrahamY's view was that it was, when eventually it made its point, sufficiently on topic to leave up here until I had responded. He is agreeable to so establish it in its own right if you wish to discuss that with him via 'feedback'.

So far, this thread on OLO is as close to a proper hearing the Howes' have had in the three years they have been held without even having been charged. Your excellent new topic threatens to divert this thread.

Forrest your points are noted and I will give them consideration and research - am still not convinced that the Howes situation is relevant to the Australian system of justice. Whereas, the case of Leach and Brennan most clearly is and germaine to the general theme of your topic which is about an apparent miscarriage of justice. Therefore, to start another topic on the same theme, appeared superfluous and would only result in a bunfight between pro-choice and anti-abortionists.

My intent was to convey that I believe there are more important issues locally than the Howes case, which would be better served with appropriate publicity in Britain. According to you, the only link to Australia is the claim by the US that the Howes have knowingly sold drug components to Australian criminals. That is a claim by the USA, as yet I have not heard from the Australian Judicial authorities - perhaps you could provide some evidence here.

Apart from the abortion case in Queensland, you may also wish to highlight the plight of asylum seekers, the high rate of imprisonment of indigenous people compared to other Australians, wage disparity between executive and other workers, Bill of Rights, gay rights and so on.

You could do no worse than to start here:

http://www.humanrightsconsultation.gov.au/www/nhrcc/submissions.nsf/category?OpenView

Apologies to Brian Howe, but I believe you should be contacting British legal aid.

PS

Thanks Graham.