Case thrust justice system into complex world of global diplomacy

HIS conviction was in the court of a barely recognised state. His proposed extradition was from a stateless legal jurisdiction.

Zain Dean’s crime was tragically mundane: killing a man in a 2010 drink-driving hit-and-run.

But because he was found guilty in Taiwan – and then fled to Scotland – the Edinburgh businessman has thrust both countries’ justice systems into the complex world of global diplomacy.

Taiwan has no formal diplomatic relations with the

UK, which, like most Western countries, broke off ties with the island in the 1970 to recognise the mainland People’s Republic of China, or PRC.

Taiwan, still governed as the Republic of China and formally claimed by the PRC, did not even have an extradition agreement with Britain when Dean was convicted in 2012.

So when he left the island on a friend’s passport before his four-year sentence was due to start, he might well have expected to remain free man.

Had he stayed, he would now have served his time. As things stand, his ordeal continues.

This is because in October 2013, a year after he absconded, the UK and Taiwan signed a memorandum of understanding on extradition. The next day Dean was arrested and detained on an extradition warrant.

Dean was the first person to face being sent to a Taiwanese prison from Britain – cue years of court wrangling in Scotland over jail conditions on the island and political showboating in Taiwan, where leaders eagerly welcomed what they saw as an endorsement of their justice system.

The stakes for Taiwan, eager to be recognised in any way at all, were huge and the Dean case was front-page news.

An eventual court decision in Edinburgh declaring the island’s prisons unfit was a blow.

The case was also huge for Scotland, which, with its own legal system but no diplomats, was showing the world it was open to co-operate on justice.

After all, the Crown Office’s International Co-operation Unit has gradually built a reputation for supporting colleagues overseas, and shying away from the kind of legal nationalism that can stymie the global fight against crime.