Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Peter Adekeye Freed, Judge Outraged At Cisco's Involvement

Posted by timothy on from the corporatism-with-a-bullet dept.

puppetman writes "Ars Technica has an article relating the recent release of Peter Adekeye, a former Cisco employee who was arrested in Canada on trumped-up charges that appear to have been fabricated by Cisco. Slashdot covered the story back in April, 2011, during which time Mr Adekeye was still being detained. In the ruling, the judge squashed the US extradition request, rebuked both the Canadian and American authorities for 'an appalling abuse of process,' and goes as far as to say that the criminal proceeding was launched on behalf of Cisco, to mirror the civil proceedings that Mr Adekeye had launched against the powerful Cisco." The full judgement (PDF) is quite readable and damning.

10 of 271 comments (clear)

  1. Yay. by IonOtter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Great. It's "damning". Yay.

    Will we see any penalties for Cisco breaking the law?

    *crickets*

    --
    [End Of Line]
    1. Re:Yay. by Esteanil · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The current judgement was only to apply the 'stay of proceedings' on the extradition request, as that was what the client sought. It appears Mr. Adekeye will be launching a claim against Cisco, and hopefully this will get the mainstream media on the story.

      He's been trying to enter the U.S. for years, but would not break visa (which has also apparently been used against him, and Cisco attemting contempt of court pleadings even though they very clearly knew exactly why he was not there, and where he was.

      Claiming he was a Nigerian citizen pretending to travel under a U.K. password and 'claiming to live in Switzerland'. This lie was repeated during the extradition request to the Canadian authorities, even though his completely valid U.K. passport had very recently spent 5 weeks in the London U.S. Embassy, a fact that was also known to Cisco and presumably Cisco's councel.

      If the U.S. authorities wanted him arrested, the easiest way would have been to respond to one of his multiple and very recent requests to enter the U.S.

      There's a lot more, if someone else who read the whole thing could respond with more highlights, that'd probably be informative.

      In conclusion, what seems to have happened here is that Cisco, in retaliation for a lawsuit against them, has colluded illegally with the U.S. Justice Department on using deceit and lies, abuse of process and every legal bullshit tactic the nastiest lawyer team from hell could think up to put the defendant under maximum legal pressure since a company he is involved with had the audacity to sue Cisco. Oh, and the settlement in the lawsuit seems to have favored said company and not Cisco.

      This is so nasty I'll be demanding a written response from Cisco on what measures they are taking to ensure this never happens again if I am to be in conscience ever to recommend a Cisco product again.

      And I hope his suit for damages (and hopefully punitive damage) gets the attention it deserves and that he is awarded ample millions and Cisco and the Department of Justice a public and very heavy black eye. This is behavior we cannot accept from corporations or anyone.

      --
      I'm a dreamer, the world is my playpen. But hey, I'm a serious person, I can't dream all the time.
    2. Re:Yay. by sjames · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I can't imagine any reason at all that each and every person who signed off on this shouldn't be immediately arrested and held without bail on charges of kidnapping, wrongful imprisonment, perjury, wire fraud and contempt of court.

      I am all too painfully aware that the law is for peons, not corporate lawyers and government officials and so they will face no penalty at all, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't face charges.

      If there is an actual honest law enforcement agency still functioning out there, kindly arrest these lawless thugs. If not, why should we obey any of them for any reason?

    3. Re:Yay. by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Corporate Death Penalty and Billion Dollars in Penalties, arresting all senior officers and the Board of Directors. The Buck stops THERE.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    4. Re:Yay. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      hundreds of thousands? Big freakin' deal.

      You could start by:
      1) Formally dissolving the company
      2) Nullifying all issued stock as the company is dissolved and no longer has any value or shares
      3) Auctioning off all material goods, patents, and merchandise to the highest bidder, with all proceeds to go to:
              a) The poor defendant in an amount determined by a jury, and then tripled
            b) All non-managerial and non-legal team, particularly any that were paid in stock
      4) Immediately freeze all managerial and legal team fiscal assets
      5) Nullify the corporate veil
      6) Arrest all managerial and legal team members. Throw the whole book at them... include RICO charges if possible
      7) Follow up with SWAT team raid of justice department members involved in collusion. Throw them into general populace if convicted.

      Fining somebody who makes billions a percent of that is irrelevant. I want to see someone executed for this perversion of justice.

    5. Re:Yay. by DMiax · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What about this: Cisco and Adekeye agreed that the court proceedings would be held in Vancouver from 18-20th of May because he was denied visa. On 19th they filed the criminal complaint alleging that he was likely to flee after the hearing. The Canadian authority was not informed that the hearing had a legal value and interrupted it so that in the end Adekeye could not testify. Talk about good timing...

      Also of note that the judge was outraged as well at the US Secret Service, since all this ploy could not be effected without the help of the sovereign state.

      As I understand it: in the last year this guy could not leave Canada, meet his family in Switzerland nor work. All because the USSS decided to give a hand to Cisco in smearing him and paint him in a bad light for the antitrust trial. I would be surprised if the judge was not outraged.

  2. Re:End of America by genner · · Score: 5, Funny

    This is just another sad statement showing the "End of America" and the dream it was, under Bush/Cheney civil liberties became secondary and Obama/Biden has done nothing to restore justice. If we in the US isn't careful we'll start blaming our countries problems on the poor/sick/gay, which is only one step away from rounding up groups and shipping them off in rail cars.

    Effective use of mass transit in this counry. I don't think so.

  3. No rubber stamping of extradition! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Thank God for Canada. This case illustrates exactly why the trend internationally to reduce the role of the courts in extradition to mere rubber stamping is so dangerous (for eg, the EAW and the removal of the need for a prima facie case to be made to the responding court in new extradition treaties).

    Bureaucrats have long viewed the need for anything other than a simple request for extradition to be produced to the other country as an annoying inconvenience and, arguing that extradition is merely an 'administrative' and not a criminal procedure, have secured changes in the law in some countries. But how can anything resulting in the removal of someone's freedom *not* be a criminal procedure? Were it not for the fact that some civil law states in Europe absolutely refuse to hand over their own citizens to any other State (I suppose with the exception of within the EU under the EAW), we would rapidly be heading towards a world where any government hands over any person to any other government on flimsy grounds. This is the case already between certain countries.

  4. extradition cases by decora · · Score: 5, Interesting

    linuxrocks points out that Canadian courts will look at this precedent, even if American's don't.

    however the DOJ has to deal with courts in other countries. especially in extradition cases, of course.

    cases like this are embarassements. when other countries completely trash our justice system, it looks bad, it makes the US look bad, and it makes the president look bad. this is not some crazy anti-american judge in a dictatorship, this is an ordinary canadian judge, whose justice system largely derives from the same source (english common law) as ours does.

    its not just about the precedent in US law... the DOJ has to look at what a Canadian court is likely to do, before it orders extradition. So the US prosecutors will be looking at the history of Canadian law, and deciding whether or not they have a chance of extraditing someone, before they spend all of the time and money, and risk embarassing losses, to actually try to do it.

  5. Not a bad idea by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Corporate Death Penalty

    Since the US treats corporations as individuals this is not a bad idea and has the huge benefit that nobody actually dies. Just shut the corporation down, all property is confiscated and sold to recompense the victims and any excess donated to relevant charities and all IP is released the to public domain (to repay damage to society the company caused). Executives get nothing - all pay, bonues, pensions etc cancelled (and they may be liable for further criminal charges/penalties if warranted) and most importantly even the shareholders get nothing so that they are very strongly motivated to not turn a blind eye if they suspect something is rotten.

    Of course we will never see anything like that actually happen because the corporations are far too powerful but wouldn't that be an amazing deterrent to corporate misbehaviour!