Forex Whistleblower Trevor Kitchen Wins Appeal of Extradition Case
Geoff Schweller, 15 June 2021
A Portuguese Court of Appeals ruled against a request from Switzerland for the extradition of whistleblower Trevor Kitchen, a British citizen currently residing on the Mediterranean island of Madeira. The decision goes against the wishes of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, which sought Kitchen’s extradition to Switzerland to face charges of defamation. Kitchen believes the extradition request was retaliation from Swiss authorities for his whistleblowing on currency manipulation.
The ruling was issued by the 3rd Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice on June 9. It upholds a lower decision which was appealed by the Prosecutor’s Office. The Court determined that “the crime that is part of the extradition request (the crime of Misuse of a telecommunication facility) is not punishable by imprisonment of one year or more,” and that it is therefore not sufficient to grant the extradition request.
In 2011, Kitchen began blowing the whistle on large-scale currency manipulation. He exposed a scheme in which a major currency trader and several banks in multiple countries colluded to lower the values of the U.S. dollar and the British sterling pound for their own financial gain.
