posted July 13, 2006 09:29 AM              

David Fickling and agencies
Wednesday July 12, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

Police officers examine the scene in east London where a body believed to be that of Neil Coulbeck was found. Photograph: Chris Young/PA.

A former colleague of one of the "NatWest three" bankers, who are due to be extradited to the US tomorrow, has been found dead near his east London home, it emerged today.
Sources confirmed that the body of Neil Coulbeck, understood to have been a co-director with David Bermingham, was found by a dogwalker last night.

Mr Coulbeck is understood to have been a former finance director for the bank in North America until about five years ago when he returned to Britain to become head of group treasury at the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).

He is thought to have committed suicide. Unconfirmed reports said that he had been interviewed by the FBI as a witness to the case.

Mr Bermingham, Gary Mulgrew and Giles Darby are accused of involvement in a complex fraud involving several Cayman Islands companies that US prosecutors claim was used to hide the scale of Enron's debt. US investigators say that the men each made £1.5m from the deal.
The Metropolitan police confirmed that a body had been discovered yesterday in parklands next to Newgate Street in Woodford Green, and added that a person had been recorded missing from Woodford Green last Thursday. A spokesman said that it was unlikely the man would be identified until tomorrow.

Mr Bermingham said he was "horrified" by the news of Mr Coulbeck's death and did not know if it was connected to his extradition case. "It puts everything that is happening to us into perspective. My heart goes out to his wife and family," he said.

Mr Bermingham said: "We are aware of people within Natwest who were indeed aggressively interviewed by the FBI. I have no idea if that was the case with Mr Coulbeck. I hope to God it wasn't.

"When the US prosecutors put together their extradition packs there were a number of witness statements in there. There was only one witness statement from America - all the rest were from Natwest.

"One of those was from Mr Coulbeck. It was not anything to do with the specific allegations. It was merely a report of what his function was within the bank, rather than being a witness statement as to evidence," he said.

The discovery was announced as a Commons emergency debate began on the 2003 Extradition Act, under which the three men are being extradited to the US as part of the investigation into the collapse of US energy company Enron.

It has not previously been suggested that FBI investigators had interviewed colleagues at RBS Group, but a spokesman for the company would neither confirm nor deny whether such interviews had taken place.

"We've said consistently over the last three years that we have cooperated fully with all the relevant authorities," he said. The FBI said it could not confirm details of an ongoing investigation.

The three are due to be arrested by FBI agents tomorrow and taken to be imprisoned in the US awaiting trial, although the British government has promised to stand bail for the men.

A separate challenge to the 2003 act is before the high court over the proposed extradition of the terror suspects Babar Ahmad and Haroon Aswat.

In the emergency debate today, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, Nick Clegg, said that the act should be repealed.

"We're all aware that tomorrow morning, three British citizens are to be extradited to the United States on the basis of an unfair, imbalanced treaty that this government negotiated in secret and to which it devoted the most cursory parliamentary scrutiny imaginable," he told MPs.

"Whilst it's too late to alter the fate of the so-called NatWest three ... it is not too late to abandon that treaty which is not yet in force in international law but which we have chosen, inexplicably, to implement unilaterally."

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