SAXENA DENIED CANADIAN APPEAL

       Rakesh Saxena, a former executive at the Bangkok Bank of Commerce (BBC), whose collapse signalled regulatory failures that led to the 1997 Asian financial crisis, has lost a bid at Canada's highest court to avoid extradition to face fraud charges in Thailand.
       The Supreme Court of Canada yesterday denied Saxena's requast for a hearing at which he would have tried to oveturn a lower-court's decision upholding the extradition. The high court gave on reason for its decision.
       Saxena, 57, fled to Canada in May 1996 shortly after the Thai government seized the bank to stop a run on deposits triggered by a central bank report that about Bt78 billion of the bank's loans were delinquent. Many of the loans were extended to top executives, their families and friends and politicians, the report said.
       The seizure forced the Bank of Thailand's governor to resign and portended a region-wide financial crisis a year later, when the baht's devaluation caused Asian currencies to tumble. Half of the loans at Thai banks went bad.
       "Bangkok Bank of Commerce was one of the first cases that exposed problems with Thailand's regulatory environment," said Virapong Boonyobhas, director of the Business Crime and Money Laundering Data Bank at Chulalongkorn University.
       Saxena is accused of conspiring to embezzle Bt1.6 billion from the bank, according to a 2006 British Columbia Court of Appeal ruling upholding his extradition.
       NOT GIVING UP
       Citi Trading, led by Saxena, obtained the loan fraudulently, Judge Kenneth Mackenzie wrote, citing government documents used to support the extradition request. Saxena used the money to pay personal debts as well as those of his other companies, the judge said. Saxena repaid about Bt650 million.
       Saxena told bloomberg News in a 1997 telephone interview that he had taken no money from the bank, because as an adviser, he had no authority.
       Saxena cannot be prosecuted in Thailand, because there is not enough evidence, his lawyer, Amandeep Singh, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday.
       "We haven't given up at this point," Singh said, adding that he would consider his options after the ruling.
       To force Saxena onto a plane and send him to Thailand immediately after the ruling would be "draconian", Singh said. Saxena had a stroke in March and is confined to a whellchair, the attorney said.
       He did not immediately respond yesterday to a request for comment.
       LONG PROCEEDINGS
       "To say that the proceedings in Canada have been protracted would be an understatement," Mackenzie wrote three years ago.
       Thailand sought Saxena's extradition soon after he arrived in Canada. The 13-year battle has been the longest in Canadian history. Karlheinz Schreiber, a former arms-industry lobbyist, this year lost a 10-year fight against extradition to Germany.
       Saxena was free on bail for the first eight years, under what Mackenzie called unusual terms. He was required to pay the cost of supervision, estimated at US$40,028 (now Bt1.34 million) a month.
       The fugitive argued that he could not get a fair trial in Thailand and would face possible danger because of alleged human-rights violations in the country, according to Canadian court files.
       "There has never been any evidence adduced by the aplicant that he, a criminal defendant, faces the risk of maltreatment," British Columbia Judge John Hall wrote on May 15 on the behalf of a three-member panel that upheld the extradition.
       NO MISCONDUCT EVIDENCE
       "Allegations that foreign authorities are going to misconduct themselves in relation to a fugitive should not be given credence in the absence of evidence," the judge wrote.
       In 2005, Thailand's Criminal Court sentenced Krirkkiat Jalichandra, the bank's former president, to 50 years in prison and fined him $472 million.
       A year later, the Anti-Money Laundering Office seized plot of land owned by Saxena worth $2.9 million, the first of his assets to be seized in the country.