The foreign ministry says that Scottish independence would not have any impact on the case of British fugitive Zain Taj Dean.
The foreign ministry says that criminal proceedings in Dean’s case have entered their second stage. Scotland’s High Court of Justiciary is expected to begin proceedings on September 26. The second stage will primarily be a legal review of the case. It is expected to take much less time than the initial proceedings, which lasted for eight months.
The deputy director-general of the foreign ministry’s Department of Treaty and Legal Affairs, Jason Lien, said Thursday that the Scottish high court has final sentencing powers in criminal cases. He said that since sentencing powers rest with a Scottish court, the case will not be disrupted in the case of a yes vote in Scotland’s referendum on independence.
"In civil cases, the highest court of appeal [for Scotland] is the UK’s House of Lords," said Lien. "But in [Scottish] criminal cases, Scotland’s High Court of Justiciary makes the final decisions. In the case of Zain Taj Dean, the Scottish High Court of Justiciary will have the final say, no matter what the results [of the referendum]."
Zain Taj Dean was sentenced to four years in prison after killing a Taiwanese man in 2010 while driving drunk. He fled from Taiwan in August 2012 using a friend’s passport. A Scottish court ruled that Dean should be extradited to Taiwan to serve out his sentence. The decision to extradite Dean was later upheld by Scotland’s justice secretary.