A British man, who owned a company that sold weapons to the U.S. Department of Defense, is attempting to stall his extradition to America to face weapons smuggling charges by filing hundreds of pages of paperwork containing statements like “I deny that I am a person,” and other language consistent with members of the sovereign citizen movement.
Guy Denton Savage has until February 13 to appeal an extradition order signed by U.K. Secretary of State Theresa May, the Tennessean reports. But, according to a UK judge, Savage has been employing methods used by the “Freemen of the Land” — apparently the British version of sovereign citizens — to create “considerable havoc and disruption in courts.”
“Mr. Savage is employing the tactic employed by those who, in this jurisdiction, call themselves ‘Freemen of the Land,'” wrote District Judge Nicholas Evans of the Westminster Magistrates’ Court in an order approving Savage’s extradition, according to the Tennessean. “Such persons have been moderately successful in creating considerable havoc and disruption in courts up and down the country, such that cases have to be adjourned and apparently, in some instances, abandoned.”
Savage, who was based in Northolt, Middlesex, is being extradited for charges from January, 2011 when he and four Nashville-based members of his company, Sabre Defence Industries LLC, were indicted on 21 counts for weapons smuggling. Sabre Defence was a “federally licensed manufacturer, distributor, and importer of firearms and firearms components for military, law enforcement and civilian use worldwide,” according to the indictment.
The weapons Sabre Defence produced were marketed to the military, law enforcement agencies, foreign allies and civilians, before it was shut down after a raid in 2010. The company’s biggest customer was the Department of Defense, which had contracts worth between $74-120 million for M16 rifles, .50 caliber machine gun barrels and other weapons.
In one alleged e-mail from 2004, Savage writes that “this Iraq situation has companies banging on our door for M16s because we are the only supplier outside the US since the State Department has a lump of granite up their asses with exporting machine guns to anywhere.” He allegedly added: “I’m not prepared to have bureaucrats in another country tell me how to run my business in the UK, which is incidentally their only reliable ally on the planet.”
Savage’s four colleagues have since reached plea agreements. But Savage is not going quite as quietly.
In response to the indictment, Savage sent pages and pages of notarized documents to the U.S. court — including a bill for $240M sent to U.S. District Judge Todd J Campbell. When the court did not pay within 30 days, Savage tacked on another $4.9 million.
One of the filings, titled a “verified plain statement of Truth,” provided a long and rambling denial of the charges. “I deny that I am incorporated. I deny that I am a person. I, without any legal disabilities fully capable of bearing a bond, a man on the land, a lawful man, a stranger to the public trust, hereby specifically and expressly deny the existence of the UNITED STATES, UNITED STATE OF AMERICA, US, USA, WASHINGTON DC, UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, UNITED NATIONS, STATE OF TENNESSEE, UNITED KINGDOM, GUY DENTON SAVAGE, and any and all US vessels.”
Savage also denied “any and all citizenships, residences, domiciles, postal service addresses, ‘ZIP CODES’, and the like.”
Prosecutors have called this language “suspiciously similar” to that of sovereign citizens, and have objected to his fillings requesting the $250 million from the court. “Defendant has failed to adequately state a valid legal argument,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Lynn T. Ingram wrote in a court filing. She later adds: “Defendant’s claims are patently meritless and nonsensical.”
