Last December, Trent Martin, an Australian who had worked for the Royal Bank of Scotland as a research analyst, was arrested in Hong Kong on US insider-trading charges and agreed to be extradited to New York.
The process took three months – during which time Mr Martin, 34, was shackled in handcuffs, held in solitary confinement and placed in a psychiatric prison, according to a letter sent by his lawyer, Larry Krantz, to a US judge.
Mr Krantz has alleged his client was subjected to “an inhuman ordeal”, and other lawyers say the case raises questions about the rights of extradited suspects at a time when US authorities are becoming more aggressive in hunting down alleged wrongdoers in other countries.