A former prosecutor who argued suspected fraudster Arif Naqvi could be jailed before his US trial admitted on Wednesday he knew of no similar cases where it had happened.
Mr Naqvi’s legal team had claimed that the 59-year-old could be sent to a notorious Manhattan jail if he was extradited from the UK even though US prosecutors said they would ask a New York judge to grant bail before any trial for racketeering, money laundering and fraud.
The businessman wants to stand trial in Britain over claims that he secured “hundreds of millions of dollars” from Abraaj Group, the Middle East private equity giant that he headed before it collapsed in 2018.
He claims that his fragile mental and physical health meant he would suffer in the overcrowded US prison system and there was a significant risk he would end up in the jail where paedophile Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide in August last year.
Lawyers for Mr Naqvi said they particularly relied on the evidence of former New York attorney Jason Masimore for suggesting that a judge could override the wishes of prosecutors and send Mr Naqvi to the Manhattan jail before a trial.
But London-based Mr Masimore told a British magistrate hearing the extradition case in London that he could not cite a single case where that had happened.
He told the court that it was “likely” that he would be given similar bail terms to London, where Mr Naqvi posted a record £15 million before he was freed after his April 2019 arrest at Heathrow Airport.
Mr Naqvi, wearing a blue suit and blue tie, listened to the evidence via videolink at his home in central London.
Mr Masimore, who spent seven years in the attorney’s office of the southern district of New York which is bringing the case against Mr Naqvi, said the trial judge was neither irrational nor capricious.
“Are you aware of any example of a decision he has made where the prosecutor has agreed to bail and a package of bail conditions in which he has gone the other way?” said Mark Summers, a lawyer representing the US government.
“I’m not aware of such a decision, no,” said Mr Masimore, who now works for a private investigation firm in London.
Mr Summers said that New York prosecutors in the southern district had also failed to identify a single case where a judge had overridden the request of prosecutors.
The hearing heard yesterday that Mr Naqvi could be jailed for up to 291 years if convicted of all 16 charges related to the collapse of Abraaj, based on Mr Masimore’s calculations. He said he was most likely to be jailed for more than 30 years, which would be served in a top security prison with little chance of clemency. Lawyers for the US dispute the analysis.
Mr Naqvi – one of six former Abraaj executives accused of crimes in the United States - denies any wrongdoing. Some of his co-defendants are cooperating with prosecutors.
