Scottish trader granted leave to appeal to Supreme Court

A Scottish trader fighting extradition to the US on fraud charges has been granted permission to appeal his case to the UK Supreme Court. James Craig, 66, is wanted in the US in connection with a £1m share scam which allegedly saw Mr Craig create fake twitter accounts in the name of well-known market research companies and tweet misleading statements to distort the share prices of firms on the Nasdaq exchange in 2013.

Mr Craig’s extradition was ordered by a sheriff in July 2019. He appealed against that decision to the Court of Criminal Appeal which upheld the original order on 3 June 2020. Lawyers for Mr Craig argued in a virtual hearing on 25 August 2020 that the appeal court judges had erred in their interpretation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (’ECHR’), which concerns the right to private and family life, and that the matter should be considered by the Supreme Court.

The Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service announced yesterday that permission to appeal to the Supreme Court was allowed on the Article 8 matter.