>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> You don't really expect me to spend a quarter of an hour watching a >>>>> bit
>>>>> of
>>>>> propaganda do you Harry? In any case, I thought you didn't want >>>>> criminals
>>>>> from the EU here; the EAW allows them to be extradited back to their >>>>> own
>>>>> country for trial.
>>>>
>>>> I don't expect thet as one of the brain dead you would be able to >>>> comprehend
>>>> this tyranical crap from the EUSSR.
>>>>
>>>> The problem is shit-fer-brains, Brits being extradited to nasty foreign
>>>> jails and held without charge for months.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> So, you don't want their criminals coming here, but are fine with our
>>> criminals going there?
>>>
>>> A European Arrest Warrant can only be issued in connection with a >>> serious
>>> crime that is an offence in both the requesting and the surrendering
>>> states. The request then has to be certified by a British Court, after
>>> which extradition proceedings can begin. A judge will then assess >>> whether
>>> the offence qualifies as an extraditable offence, that there are no
>>> statutory bars to the extradition and that it does not infringe the
>>> person's human rights. If all those conditions are met, then a British
>>> judge will order the person's surrender, but that decision can be >>> appealed
>>> in the High Court.
>>>
>> If you'd bothered to watch the video SFB, you'd know that none of the >> above
>> is true.
>
> As I said at the start, I'm not going to waste a quarter of an hour
> watching a bit of propaganda. By all means, provide a link to documentary
> evidence of your claims and I will read it; reading is at my speed not
> somebody else's. However, every statement I have made above is true,
> although I did omit to mention there are some very serious and universal
> crimes where it is not necessary to prove they are crimes in both states
> for extradition to be granted, so I rather doubt you can.
If you want me to watch a video, make it five minutes or less. I have better things to do with my time than spend longer than that watching one of your soapboxes.
Exactly where does that contradict anything I have written?
To recast your gobbledegook into meaningful language: Yes, the existence of EAW administrative procedures allows governments in practice to breach the law regarding the issue and execution of EAW warrants.
Nevertheless, its existence provides a convenient method for governments to breach their citizens' rights.
So all we need to do to ensure no law ever gets broken, is to have no laws.
Not legally, it doesn't. And if they're going to break the law, then the existence of that (or any other) law is kinda irrelevant.
But - just to clarify what you're saying here... Governments are only tempted to breach the law surrounding extradition, and the EAW specifically, because that law is there? If there wasn't any law to codify, formalise and control extradition, no Government would ever do anything even remotely dodgy...?
You're still having difficulty reading. I said the existence of the EAW
*administrative procedure* provides a convenient method for governments to breach their citizens' rights. If it didn't exist, they wouldn't find it as easy to do.
No. I said the EAW mechanism provides governments with a convenient method to breach their citizens' rights.
There are, no doubt, other methods.
What's the point of making such a stupid remark? It doesn't advance the discussion in the slightest.
Wrong. In the Toben case the German authorities *did* accuse someone who had avoided Germany of committing crimes in Germany, and they also attempted to use the EAW to extradite him from England. In the event their request was denied, but the case is sufficient to show that governments *will* do precisely what you said they will not do.
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"In 2008, the German federal authorities attempted unsuccessfully to extradite Töben from the United Kingdom under a European Arrest Warrant for allegedly publishing "antisemitic and / or revisionist" material on his website, which he writes from his home in Australia, and is a crime that does not exist in Britain.[14] On October 1, 2008, Töben was detained at Heathrow Airport while flying from the United States to Dubai.[13]
... Töben was offered bail, pending an appeal by the German prosecuting authorities to the High Court. Strict conditions were set, including limitations on Töben's communication and travel but he was unable to raise the £100,000 security required."
Here's an interesting example, and incidentally one that shows how the authorities of a foreign country might be less inclined to treat British citizens with the same respect for their rights as they would expect here. Notice that in this case he is black.
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24 Oct 2007 : Column 379
"In November 2003, Joe Mendy, then aged 19, went on holiday with two friends to Fuerteventura in the Canary islands. On the second Friday of their stay, Joe Mendy was sitting by the hotel swimming pool when a number of Spanish police officers appeared and insisted that he accompany them to the hotel room that he was sharing with his friends. The police searched Joe Mendy, his two friends and their hotel room. They were taken to a police station, where they were charged with counterfeiting four ?5O notes, one of which the police claimed had been passed in a bar and another in a shop. One note was in the possession of one of Joe Mendy?s friends, and the other was found among other notes in a drawer in the hotel room.
All three young men were held in custody separately until the Sunday. Joe Mendy was asked repeatedly how and where he was printing counterfeit euro notes. The police checked whether Joe had paid with forged euros when he bought a watch. He had not. During this time the three young men were given only one bread roll and water, and were subject to racist abuse and told that things were made especially hard for black English in the Spanish criminal justice system?a threat borne out by events.
Joe Mendy and his two friends appeared in court on the following Monday and were told to report back to the court at 9 am the next morning. On returning to their hotel room, they found that most of their belongings had been stolen. None has been recovered. On returning to court on time the next day, they were told that they would be released, that they would hear further from the Spanish authorities and that, in the meantime, they could return to Britain. Their passports, after being copied, were returned to them. All this happened, I emphasise, in 2003.
Nothing more was heard by any of the young men until March this year, when officers from the Serious Organised Crime Agency in this country called at Joe Mendy?s family home in Camden Town. Joe?s mother explained that her son was living in Liverpool. The officers gave her their phone number, which she passed on to Joe, who telephoned the police and volunteered to return to London. The police did not get back to him, so he called again and was told that the police in Liverpool would be dealing with his case. The upshot was that on 28 March this year Joe Mendy was served a European arrest warrant, held in police cells in Liverpool overnight and brought to London in a police vehicle for a court appearance the next day.
Joe Mendy was then released on bail. He duly appealed against the extradition. As the Minister and the House know, this involves the UK courts doing nothing more than going through the motions, because there are virtually no grounds on which to challenge a European extradition warrant. At the court hearing on 3 July, the extradition was duly allowed to proceed. On 18 July, Joe Mendy went under his own steam to Heathrow to report to the UK police, who handed him over to the Spanish police, who accompanied him to Madrid.
At the subsequent court appearance in Madrid, Joe Mendy was denied bail on the bizarre grounds that he was a flight risk. By this time, the Spanish judicial holidays were commencing, so my innocent constituent of exemplary good character was held in the Spanish jail over the summer. During that time, Joe discovered that the Spanish authorities, despite knowing his UK address and the addresses of his two friends, had followed up the initial hearing in the Canary islands by writing to them all after they had returned to the UK?not at their home addresses, but at their hotel at Fuerteventura.
After spending almost two months on remand in the Spanish jail, Joe appeared before a Spanish judge on 15 September. His Spanish lawyer advised him that if he continued to plead not guilty, he was likely to be held in jail for at least a further year before his case came to trial. If, however, he pleaded guilty, he would, because of his exemplary record in Britain, get a suspended sentence and a small fine. Understandably in such dreadful circumstances, he pleaded guilty and got a two-year suspended sentence and a ?600 fine. Joe Mendy was released and is now back in the United Kingdom.
All that happened despite the fact that he was never in possession of any forged euro notes and had no idea that any notes were forgeries. The outrage visited on Joe Mendy did not end there. He had won a place at Liverpool John Moores university, but could not take up his place this year because of delays resulting from his Spanish misadventure. Following representations from me, the university was prepared to allow Joe to start his course late and try to catch up, but Joe has accepted what I believe to be the sound advice of Professor Michael Brown, the university vice-chancellor, that it would be better for him to take up his place next year. The university has undertaken to provide Joe with advice and help in the meantime so that he hits the ground running in autumn 2008. The university thus qualifies as the only bit of officialdom to display some common sense and humanity in this case.
The treatment of Joe Mendy is a disgrace; it is exactly the sort of incident that brings European institutions into disrepute. Sending letters to the hotel instead of the home addresses reveals incompetent administrative procedures in the Spanish judicial system. Following its error, it resorted to the use of the European extradition warrant. However, not all the fault lies with the Spanish authorities?I have discovered that they issued the warrant on 14 June 2004 and that an English-language version, of which I have a copy, has a date stamp showing that it was received by the UK central authority on 25 June
2004.
What happened to the warrant between June 2004 and March 2007? Was it mislaid? I would like to think that the Serious Organised Crime Agency was too busy on more important matters?it certainly should have been. Whatever the explanation, a three-year delay in the very procedure that was supposed to speed up extradition is surely unacceptable.
After the warrant was eventually served, the judge in Britain responded by deciding that a British citizen of exemplary character should be returned to Spain in July, despite it being known that the Spanish judicial holidays were coming up?meaning that Joe would probably have to stay in jail?and without recommending to her Spanish counterpart that Joe Mendy be granted bail in Spain. That was followed by a Spanish judge deciding that Joe Mendy was a flight risk, despite his never having displayed any such tendencies at any stage. That, in turn, was followed by Joe Mendy being pressured into pleading guilty by the prospect of a further period of a year on remand in a Spanish jail.
All that was over four 50 euro notes, none of which was found in his possession; all that was done under powers that this House granted to deal with serious organised crime that crosses international boundaries. I repeat: serious organised crime. That is made clear on the face of the warrant served on Joe Mendy. It lists 32 categories of crime it is intended to cover, including terrorism, trafficking in radioactive materials, sabotage, unlawful seizure of aircraft and ships, sexual exploitation of children, trafficking in drugs, trafficking in people and trafficking in weapons. It also includes hostage-taking, murder and laundering the proceeds of crime. I have to admit that it includes the counterfeiting of currency, including the euro, but did anyone seriously believe that it was intended to cover accusations relating to the innocent possession of four forged ?50 notes?
Sadly, the law that we passed does not require the authorities to use their common sense or to have a sense of proportion. Having being passed by the House on the argument that it would speed up extradition, our law does not demand that the authorities proceed expeditiously. Instead, it demonstrably permits them to take nearly four years to crank up this draconian machinery. Have not the Spanish police and judiciary anything better to do? Was this the best use of Britain?s Serious Organised Crime Agency? What happened was not a crime, was not serious, and most certainly was not organised.
If the Spanish and UK authorities were so keen on this extradition, what about the other two young men? Neither Joe Mendy nor I want them to be treated as badly as he has been treated, but someone must explain why he was singled out for special mistreatment. I hope that the Minister will be able to clear up with the Spanish and the UK authorities how and why this whole mess came about and get them to apologise for their mistakes. I also think that my constituent should be compensated for the injustices that have been done to him.
The catalogue of incompetence that I have outlined has caused great injustice to my constituent, Joe Mendy. More generally, it has cost British and Spanish taxpayers a fortune in money and diverted the efforts of police and others who should have had better things to do with their time. It has brought the European extradition warrant system into disrepute. I believe that this House should insist on a change in the procedures so that common sense and a sense of proportion are included in the process. Nothing less will do."
Note that the "no bail because he's a flight risk" is the same shit that the US court used against the NatWest 3.
They were alleged to be a "flight risk" because they resisted extradition, which they should be perfectly within their rights to do and which should not affect any bail considerations.
You have managed to find one seven year old case, from a system that produces around 15,000 warrant a year to illustrate what? That young black men are treated with utmost courtesy by the British Police or that nothing ever goes wrong with the British judicial system?
He might have been avoiding it physically following his earlier arrest, but a web site that is partly in German is clearly targeting a German or Austrian audience.
...
That depends upon whether it amounts to incitement to racial hatred, which is a crime in the UK, if not by the same name.
...
Not an unreasonable sum for a foreign national with no links to Britain.
I suspect the fact that the charges expire in August might have something to do with it. I wonder what happens to his asylum status if the charges expire and has he committed an arrestable offence by evading the extradition proceedings, even if the original charges expire?
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