BoS PEER FEARS NEXT U.S. MOVE

(678) (11-October-2006)

"All the UK government has done is open its doors and say to the Americans: 'Come and get anybody you like..."

If one of the objectives of the recent US Department of Justice's crackdown on Internet gambling executives was to create fear and insecurity among offshore company directors, then it seems to be working.  The Belfast Telegraph reports that Bet On Sports director Lord Glentoran and his family are living amid "absolute insecurity" about being dragged into a high-profile US federal probe.

Referring to the threat of extradition under a recent treaty that is supposed to be used in the international war on terror, Lord Glentoran said he feared that US lawmakers were preparing to "come after" the directors of the gambling firm BetOnSports.

Former BetOnSports chief executive David Carruthers remains under house arrest in St Louis, Missouri, preparing his defence against charges of fraud, racketeering and unlawful gaming. He was indicted by a Missouri grand jury and arrested whilst on a Texas stopover in America earlier this year . He has pleaded not guilty.

Lord Glentoran, an executive director of the firm, has ,yes, denied to the newspaper that any of the firm's directors have done anything wrong. "None of us, as far as we are concerned, have done anything wrong. We have not infringed any laws known about outside the US or any laws that have actually been tested in the US. It creates a feeling of absolute insecurity for yourself and your family."

The Northern Irish peer is critical of the UK government's lack of protection, saying: "All the UK government has done is open its doors and say to the Americans: 'Come and get anybody you like. You don't have to tell us what you think they might have done wrong. Just take them if you want them.'"

"The Americans have been advertising for the last 150 years that they are the land of the free. They are actually the land of the shackles. There is no freedom in the US," he added.