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Case 1:20-cr-00330-AJN Document 165 Filed 03/09/21 Page 6 of 9
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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.” (Id.). So too here. An offer to renounce her foreign citizenship “[s]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 OIA 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 OIA 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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