NGO Locates former Union Carbide CEO, India Prepares Extradition Request

On September 6, 2002, the media reported that the India Government was preparing to request the extradition of Warren Anderson, former chief executive of Union Carbide, for ?culpable homicide? relating to the thousands of death due to the deadly gas leaks from the Union Carbide plant in Bhophal, India in 1984. The Indian Government was apparently preparing the extradition request as a result of work by Casey Harrell, the Greenpeace worker who located Anderson. In the late 1980s he disappeared. The inability to locate Mr. Anderson has served as an excuse for the failure to formally prepare extradition documents and request his extradition. Also at the end of August, an Indian Court instructed the Indian Government to reinstate the charge of ?culpable homicide? after it had been reduced to ?negligence.? Although the extradition request may not be granted by the U.S. and comes 18 years after the worst industrial accident in the world, an extradition request of Anderson would have symbolic significance.