Former US president Donald Trump will not be handcuffed when he surrenders next week in New York to face criminal charges, under the terms of a deal agreed between his defence attorneys and Manhattan prosecutors, defence lawyer Joe Tacopina said on Friday.
Mr Tacopina said in an interview that he expected the arrest otherwise to proceed as a matter of routine on Tuesday, when Mr Trump is due to appear to face an indictment following a grand jury investigation of a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels during Mr Trump's 2016 campaign.
"I don't know how all this is going to go down. There's no textbook to see how you arraign a former president of the United States in criminal court," Mr Tacopina said.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office could not immediately be reached for reaction to Mr Tacopina's comments.
Mr Tacopina said Mr Trump and his defence team were surprised by news of the indictment: "Initially we were all shocked. Didn't believe they were actually going to go through with this because there's no crime here."
Prosecutors said they were working to coordinate Mr Trump’s surrender, which could happen early next week.
They did not say whether they intended to seek prison time in the event of a conviction, a development that would not prevent Mr Trump from seeking and assuming the presidency.
The indictment, the first against a former US president, injects a local district attorney’s office into the heart of a national presidential race and ushers in criminal proceedings in a city that the ex-president for decades called home.
Arriving at a time of deep political divisions, the charges are likely to reinforce rather than reshape duelling perspectives of those who see accountability as long overdue and those who, like Mr Trump, feel the Republican is being targeted for political purposes by a Democratic prosecutor.
Mr Trump, who has denied any wrongdoing and has repeatedly assailed the investigation, called the indictment “political persecution” and predicted it would damage Democrats in 2024. -Reuters
