A German court has refused to extradite to the UK a man accused of drug trafficking because of concerns about prison conditions in Britain. The decision has been described as a “severe rebuke” and “an embarrassment for the UK” by a member of the Law Society. The case involves an Albanian man who lived in the UK. He was accused of trafficking approximately 5kg of cocaine and of laundering about £330,000.

  • tal@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    16
    ·
    1 year ago

    Since the UK is no longer a member of the EU, the rules of the European arrest warrant no longer apply. The trade and cooperation agreement concluded between the EU and Britain in 2020 states that an arrest warrant can be subject to certain conditions, and “if there are reasonable grounds for believing that there is a real threat to the protection of the fundamental rights of the requested person, the executing judicial authority may, where appropriate, require additional guarantees”.

    It sounds like something similar applies even under the European Arrest Warrant, that each individual appeal can still make an argument that the justice system is flawed and so they should not be extradited.

    https://www.politico.eu/article/european-court-belgium-reject-extradition-catalan-separatist-lluis-puig-spain/

    The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled Tuesday that Belgium’s decision to refuse the extradition of Catalan separatist Lluís Puig to Spain is not legal — unless it finds “systemic deficiencies” in Spain’s judicial system.

    “An executing judicial authority may not, in principle, refuse to execute a European arrest warrant,” the ruling published on Tuesday morning reads.

    But it added that the “authority must, however, refuse to execute that European arrest warrant if it finds that there are systemic or generalised deficiencies affecting the judicial system of that Member State and that the court called upon to try the requested person in that Member State clearly lacks jurisdiction.”

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    A German court has refused to extradite to the UK a man accused of drug trafficking because of concerns about prison conditions in Britain, in what is thought to be the first case of its kind.

    Westminster magistrates court issued an international arrest warrant, also known as an Interpol red notice, asking for him to be returned to the UK.

    A police station in Manchester replied to the court’s first request on the final day of the deadline for a response, saying 20,000 extra prison places were being built to deal with the problem of overcrowding.

    Failing to receive the assurances it sought about UK prison conditions, the German court determined the extradition of the Albanian as “currently inadmissible”.

    The trade and cooperation agreement concluded between the EU and Britain in 2020 states that an arrest warrant can be subject to certain conditions, and “if there are reasonable grounds for believing that there is a real threat to the protection of the fundamental rights of the requested person, the executing judicial authority may, where appropriate, require additional guarantees”.

    There have been similar court decisions before under the European arrest warrant framework, but in relation to member states whose records on prisons and human rights the UK would not wish to compare itself with.”


    The original article contains 621 words, the summary contains 213 words. Saved 66%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!