US Ready to Consider Fresh Indian Plea on Anderson’s Extradition

The US has said that it is ready to give ‘fair consideration’ to any fresh plea from India to extradite former chairman of Union Carbide Corp Warren Anderson, said media reports.

“We have an extradition treaty with India. And if India makes an extradition request to us, we will give it fair consideration,” State Department spokesman PJ Crowley was quoted as saying.

Answering a query while talking to reporters, he said that if Indian government made such a request, the US would ‘carefully evaluate’ it, reports said.

However, he clarified that he was not in a position to verify if the US had already received such plea of if it had answered to them, arguing that all such issues were confidential, said reports.

On Monday when the verdict in Bhopal gas tragedy came, the US had ruled out any ‘new inquiries’ against the company, hoping that the judgement would bring ‘closure’ to the families of the gas leak victims.

Also, Crowley pointed out that it was hard to draw a comparison between the Bhopal gas tragedy that left over 15,000 dead and the BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico now, saying that the American companies were ‘very mindful and respectful’ of the rules of the land when they operated overseas, reports said.

“It is hard to necessarily draw a direct comparison to — in the case of Bhopal, there was a settlement realised a number of years ago… though I don’t express that I have all the facts here in front of me,” Crowley was quoted as saying.

“You have an ongoing situation here. BP, as a private company, has stepped up and indicated that it will take its own steps, since it owns the well, to stop the leak and to pay for the mitigation of the impact,” the State Department spokesman was quoted as saying.

He said that he would not ‘necessarily feel comfortable comparing what happened in the mid-80s and what’s happening today’, said reports.

(Based on internet reports)