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25 March 2010
Issue: 7410 / Categories: Legal News
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Court concludes Lodhi hearing

A 10-year legal battle has ended with the High Court quashing the Home Office decision to extradite businessman Mohammed Lodhi

A 10-year legal battle has ended with the High Court quashing the Home Office decision to extradite businessman Mohammed Lodhi to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) where there was a risk he would have been tortured or suffered inhuman or degrading treatment.

The court also held Lodhi would have been prejudiced at his trial, or punished and detained by reason of his race and nationality. Sadly, the ruling, which concludes the longest running extradition proceedings in English legal history, comes too late for Lodhi, who died in January.
Lodhi had been accused of involvement in drugs manufacturing.

His lawyers argued the allegations were fabricated as a result of business rivalries, and that torture was widespread in the UAE’s prisons.The court accepted that the evidence painted a “picture of a state which respects human rights in a very selective way”.

Lodhi’s solicitor, Corker Binning solicitor Andrew Smith, says: “To win an extradition case on human rights grounds

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Laytons ETL—Maximilian Kraitt

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Browne Jacobson—seven promotions

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Six promoted to partner and one to legal director across UK and Ireland offices

NEWS

From blockbuster judgments to procedural shake-ups, the courts are busy reshaping litigation practice. Writing in NLJ this week, Professor Dominic Regan of City Law School hails the Court of Appeal's 'exquisite judgment’ in Mazur restoring the role of supervised non-qualified staff, and highlights a ‘mammoth’ damages ruling likened to War and Peace, alongside guidance on medical reporting fees, where a pragmatic 25% uplift was imposed

Momentum is building behind proposals to restrict children’s access to social media—but the legal and practical challenges are formidable. In NLJ this week, Nick Smallwood of Mills & Reeve examines global moves, including Australia’s under-16 ban and the UK's consultation
Reforms designed to rebalance landlord-tenant relations may instead penalise leaseholders themselves. In this week's NLJ, Mike Somekh of The Freehold Collective warns that the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 risks creating an ‘underclass’ of resident-controlled freehold companies
Timing is everything—and the Court of Appeal has delivered clarity on when proceedings are ‘brought’. In his latest 'Civil way' column for NLJ, Stephen Gold explains that a claim is issued for limitation purposes when the claim form is delivered to the court, even if fees are underpaid
The traditional ‘single, intensive day’ of financial dispute resolution (FDR) may be due for a rethink. Writing in NLJ this week, Rachel Frost-Smith and Lauren Guiler of Birketts propose a ‘split FDR’ model, separating judicial evaluation from negotiation
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