GERMANY/NETHERLANDS: BARING BANK DEALER, NICK LEESON, FACES EXTRADITION TO SINGAPORE

Record ID: 566027

  • Title: GERMANY/NETHERLANDS: BARING BANK DEALER, NICK LEESON, FACES EXTRADITION TO SINGAPORE
  • Date: 2nd March 1995
  • Summary: FRANKFURT, GERMANY AND AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS (MARCH 3, 1995) (RTV - ACCESS ALL) FRANKFURT (MARCH 3, 1995) 1. LV/SV MEDIA OUTSIDE BUILDING/SINGAPORE OFFICIALS LEAVING /GET INTO CAR/MEDIA/CAR DRIVES OFF (5 SHOTS) 0.57 2. LV JOURNALISTS WAITING OUTSIDE CENTRE 1.02 3. CU EBERHARD KEMPF, LAWYER TO BANKER NICK LEESON, SPEAKING TO INTERNATIONAL PRESS ABOUT A POSSIBLE EXTRADITION OF LEESON (ENGLISH) 1.52 4. LV/SV PROSECUTOR HANS-HERMAN ECKERT SAYING THE SUPREME COURT OF FRANKFURT WILL DECIDE THIS AFTERNOON THAT THE BRITISH NICHOLAS WILLIAM LEESON HAS A WARRANT AGAINST HIM AND HE WILL BE KEPT IN PRISON AWAITING EXTRADITION (ENGLISH) (INDESTINC - MEDIA APPLAUDS HIM FOR SPEAKING IN ENGLISH WHICH HE SAYS IS POOR) 2.38 AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS 5. SV/VARIOUS EXT. INTERNATIONAL NEDERLANDEN GROEP BANK HEADQUARTERS (5 SHOTS) 2.57 SEQ.3: TRANSCRIPT; KEMPF: "THERE IS AN ARREST WARRANT FROM SINGAPORE. IT'S UP TO THE GERMAN COURT TO DECIDE WHETHER OR NOT TO KEEP HIM UNDER ARREST. THE COURT WILL CONSIDER HIS EXTRADITION -- THE WHOLE PROCEDURE CAN TAKE WEEKS AND MONTHS" Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
  • Embargoed: 17th March 1995 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: FRANKFURT, GERMANY AND AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS
  • City:
  • Country: EUROPE Netherlands Germany
  • Reuters ID: LVA8SR5CFZCHQ7X8MN1R5M605GF5
  • Story Text: Nick Leeson, the 28-year-old securities trader who brought down Britain's oldest merchant bank, denied having forged documents and would fight efforts to extradite him to Singapore, his lawyer said on Friday (March 3).

    Asked whether Leeson would voluntarily return to Singapore, where he's accused of falsifying documents and forging a bank receipt worth 81 million United States (U.S.) dollars, lawyer Eberhard Kempf told reporters: "I think not." "He would certainly prefer to go to London than to Singapore," he added.

    Leeson, who ruined Barings - the bastion of British investment banking - by running up losses of at least 900 million U.S.

    dollars, was scheduled to face a German judge later on Friday who could formally arrest him while Singapore presses for his extradition.

    Asked how Leeson was looking, Kempf said, "He's in good spirits". He described his client as well and "ready".

    Investigators from Singapore's Commercial Affairs Department arrived in Frankfurt early on Friday with documents expected to back their extradition request for Leeson.

    Kempf told reporters, "He is accused of forging documents." Asked if Leeson denied this, Kempf said "Yes." Meanwhile, German prosecutor Hans-Hermann Eckert has requested Leeson's detention pending extradition.

    Eckert said the request to put Leeson into "extradition detention" was based on documents which had been handed over to German officials from authorities in Singapore.

    Eckert said the Frankfurt court deciding on whether Leeson should be detained further would not make a decision on whether to actually extradite the 28-year-old derivatives trader.

    That was a step that had to be taken by the federal government in Bonn, he added.

    Meanwhile Dutch bank International Nederlanden Groep (ING) are reported to be on the verge of buying Barings for just one pound sterling (1.5 U.S. dollars).


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