http://stage.fairtrials.net/index.php en allan.williams@fairtrials.net Copyright 2012 2012-04-13T12:58:57+00:00 http://www.fairtrials.net/cases/article/natalia-gorczowska http://www.fairtrials.net/cases/article/natalia-gorczowska#When:07:00:06Z Natalia Gorczowska is a 23 year-old Polish national and mother of a one year-old baby. She had a terrible childhood in Poland and adopted a self-destructive lifestyle, resulting in her arrest at the age of 17 for possession of a small quantity of amphetamines for personal use. She was convicted and given a 10-month suspended sentence. One of the conditions imposed was that she undergo drug rehabilitation. Aged 18, Natalia travelled to the UK and has since broken her addiction. She has had stable employment and in March 2011, had a baby son, for which she is the sole carer. Despite this, she is now facing the threat of extradition to Poland to serve the 10 month prison sentence imposed on her when she was 17 because she left Poland without informing her parole officer. If extradited, her one year old baby could be taken into care as there are no other family members that could care for him. Update - April 17 Natalia's Polish lawyer has confirmed that at a hearing on March 28 the Polish authorities agreed to drop their request to extradite Natalia. We have today received official confirmation from the Serious Organised Crime Agency that Natalia's European Arrest Warrant has been rescinded, leaving Natalia to get on with her life. 2012-03-26T07:00:06+00:00 http://www.fairtrials.net/cases/article/graham-mitchell http://www.fairtrials.net/cases/article/graham-mitchell#When:07:00:58Z Mr Graham Mitchell, a British citizen from Kent, was prosecuted for attempted murder in Portugal in 1994-5. He spent one year in pre-trial detention during which time he was subject to serious ill treatment. He was finally acquitted, released and returned home to the UK to start the difficult task of rebuilding his life. Portugal has now issued a European Arrest Warrant seeking his extradition to face charges based on the same facts as the original prosecution 18 years ago. Graham was arrested at his home in early 2012 and taken into custody before being granted bail by a British court. He now faces the ordeal of extradition proceedings in the UK and the threat of a new trial in Portugal.   2012-03-20T07:00:58+00:00 http://www.fairtrials.net/cases/article/benny_wenda http://www.fairtrials.net/cases/article/benny_wenda#When:05:30:31Z Benny Wenda is a West Papuan tribal leader who leads an international campaign for the independence of West Papua from Indonesia. Due to his activities he was persecuted by the Indonesian government, subjected to torture and a politically-motivated prosecution. He escaped to the UK and was given asylum in 2002. Benny is now a British citizen and lives with his wife and six children in Oxford. In 2011, Benny discovered that Interpol had listed a “red notice” against him following a request from the Indonesian police. This red notice authorizes Benny’s provisional arrest with a view to extradition to face prosecution on the same politically-motivated charges that caused him to flee from West Papua. If Benny leaves the UK he could therefore be arrested and extradited to Indonesia. Despite being the leader in exile of his people, Benny is now unable to travel to meet with international campaign supporters or with other West Papuan exiles. Indonesia has used the red notice to continue its persecution from afar. Benny’s case demonstrates how Interpol (an international organisation of national police forces) is being abused by oppressive and undemocratic regimes to pursue political opponents. FTI is calling for the red notice against Benny to be removed and for broader reform of Interpol to prevent abuse of this powerful international body and to give people like Benny a fair chance to challenge a notice. 2011-11-25T05:30:31+00:00 http://www.fairtrials.net/cases/article/tracey-molamphy http://www.fairtrials.net/cases/article/tracey-molamphy#When:09:28:23Z Summary Tracey Molamphy, a 40 year old British secretary, was arrested on a European Arrest Warrant in 2008 at Munich airport while catching a connecting flight in Germany after a holiday in Greece. At first she had no idea why she had been arrested but was eventually told that Portugal had demanded her extradition in relation to an arrest there in 1996, 12 years earlier. This had been an incident, relating to her former partner’s use of counterfeit money equivalent to less than £150 while they were on a holiday. Tracey had thought this had been a simple misunderstanding that had been cleared up. Upon her arrest in Germany, however, Tracey was detained for two weeks and told she would be extradited to Portugal to face charges carrying a 5 year prison sentence. With the help of three separate teams of lawyers, she was eventually able to challenge the charges in Portugal and was not extradited, but not before weeks in a foreign prison and months of uncertainty, stress and mounting costs. 2011-11-07T09:28:23+00:00 http://www.fairtrials.net/cases/article/da_an_chen http://www.fairtrials.net/cases/article/da_an_chen#When:16:34:36Z   In 2005, Mr Chen was arrested in the UK on the request of Romania where he had been tried in his absence in 1995 and given a 20 year prison sentence for allegedly committing attempted murder. Mr Chen insists that he knows nothing about the alleged and was in fact in Hungary on the date in question. Mr Chen had no knowledge that his trial was taking place and was unable to present any evidence. In fact his court-appointed defence counsel (who had never spoken to Mr Chen), agreed with the prosecutor’s submissions and requested Mr Chen’s conviction. Despite the fact that Mr Chen had been convicted in his absence, and even though Romanian law did not guarantee him a retrial, in 2006 the UK courts ordered his extradition to serve the 20 year sentence. They did this based on the assumption that Romania would in practice allow him a retrial because this is what it is to do required under international laws Romania had signed up to. They also relied on reports by Romanian legal experts and assurances given by the Romanian Government to the UK Home Office. Following his extradition, Mr Chen applied for a retrial. An initial hearing occurred to determine if a full retrial should be granted. At this hearing Mr Chen’s sentence was upheld and no retrial was ordered. This refusal to grant a retrial has been appealed and upheld in Romania all the way to the Supreme Court. Mr Chen no longer has any avenues open to challenge the refusal to give him a retrial. The assurances given by Romania were not lived up to and the assumptions made by the British court that extradited Mr Chen have now been shown to have been unfounded. Fair Trials International is now supporting Mr Chen’s Romanian lawyer’s application to the European Court of Human Rights. We are also working to raise the profile of the injustice that Mr Chen has suffered to demonstrate that the courts cannot place blind faith in assurances given by other countries about the treatment people will be given following their extradition. 2011-10-31T16:34:36+00:00 http://www.fairtrials.net/cases/article/william_burton http://www.fairtrials.net/cases/article/william_burton#When:16:58:20Z   Update: Fair Trials International is delighted to announce that William Burton was pardoned by the Philippines on December 26, 2011. He returned home to the UK in April 2012.   William “Billy” Burton, a 49 year old British national with serious health problems, had spent 18 years in a maximum security prison in Manila after he was arrested while in possession of 12 pounds of cannabis. He was initially given a 30 year sentence in 1992 with the possibility of parole after 8 years.   However, due to changes in the drug laws of the Philippines, his sentence was increased to 40 years. A further change in the law retroactively applied to Billy also means that he was been deprived of the possibility of parole. His release date was 2032, by which time Billy will be seventy years old.   Billy suffers from a number of birth defects as a result of his mother having taken the drug Thalidomide during her pregnancy. His incarceration in a maximum security prison with overcrowding and poor conditions had caused his health to deteriorate more rapidly than it would have had otherwise. He is in serious need of medical care only available outside of prison.   A clemency petition for Billy had won initial approval from the Parole and Pardons Board in the Philippines, President Beningo S. Aquino granted the pardon on Boxing Day 2011. 2011-09-27T16:58:20+00:00 http://www.fairtrials.net/cases/article/viswalingam_gopithas http://www.fairtrials.net/cases/article/viswalingam_gopithas#When:13:17:54Z Fair Trials International challenges Indefinite Detention under Sri Lankan Terrorism Laws at the United Nations Mr Viswalingam Gopithas, a British father of two from London, was arrested in 2007 on suspicion of seeking to provide support to the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. He has been detained for years since then without trial. Mr Gopithas is being held under the notorious “Prevention of Terrorism Act” (PTA), one of a range of controversial security measures that have resulted in sustained criticism for Sri Lanka from the international community for human rights violations. Fair Trials International has filed an application before the United Nations Human Rights Committee challenging his indefinite detention under the PTA which allows indefinite detention without trial. Mr Gopithas is the only British national known to be held under this extraordinary law. We have also called on the British government to raise its concern about Mr Gopithas’ treatment in violation of international human rights standards.   2011-05-31T13:17:54+00:00 http://www.fairtrials.net/cases/article/francisco_juan_larranaga_paco http://www.fairtrials.net/cases/article/francisco_juan_larranaga_paco#When:17:14:54Z United Nations condemn conviction In 1999 Paco, a dual national of Spain and the Phillipines, was convicted of the kidnap, rape and murder of two young women in Cebu City despite fourteen witnesses testifying that he was on a different island, 500km away, when the crimes were committed. Paco was sentenced to death in 2004, later commuted to life imprisonment. Fair Trials International has been working on Paco’s case since 2004, helping to take the case to the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC). In 2006 the UNHRC concluded that Paco’s trial had violated the most fundamental fair trial standards including the right to be presumed innocent, the right to effective defence counsel, equality of arms and the right to have your case heard before an independent court. The UNHRC’s findings were ignored and Paco remained in prison. In October 2009, he was transferred from the Philippines to Spain under a prison transfer agreement.  "Since Paco is now in Spain, he is their responsibility. The UNHRC recommended that Paco’s death sentence be commuted and he be given early parole. Although his death sentence was commuted, he still remains in prison. Spain must do something.” Faisal Saifee, Paco’s UK lawyer  Give Up Tomorrow, a feature documentary, traces Paco’s story. Please see the trailer below. It premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2011 and won the Heineken Audience Award. The documentary, six years in the making, was directed by Michael Collins and produced by Marty Syjuco. The documentary features the work of Fair Trials International.     2011-05-03T17:14:54+00:00 http://www.fairtrials.net/cases/article/deborah_dark http://www.fairtrials.net/cases/article/deborah_dark#When:04:13:39Z British grandmother pursued by the French authorities to serve a prison sentence for a twenty year old conviction she knew nothing about Deborah Dark was arrested and detained, first at gunpoint in Turkey, then in Spain and then in the UK to serve a prison sentence for a twenty-year old conviction. In 1989, Deborah was found not guilty of drug related offences in a French Court. Unbeknownst to Deborah and following her return to the UK, the prosecutor appealed the verdict in her absence and she was found guilty by an Appeal Court. She was never summoned to appear to court, nor was she informed of the conviction. Although courts in both the UK and Spain ruled that it would be unjust to extradite her, Deborah remained subject to the European Arrest Warrant in virtually all other EU member states. Deborah was in effect trapped within the UK and unable to visit her family in Spain for over 3 years. It was only in May 2010, after Fair Trials International helped build public and political support for Deborah’s case that France finally agreed to remove the Arrest Warrant.   2011-03-15T04:13:39+00:00 http://www.fairtrials.net/cases/article/jock-palfreeman http://www.fairtrials.net/cases/article/jock-palfreeman#When:12:58:57Z While on holiday in Bulgaria in December 2007, Australian national and British army recruit, Jock Palfreeman, was arrested and charged with murder following a fight which had broken out between Jock and 14 Bulgarian men. Jock claims that he had gone to the aid of two Roma men who were being attacked by the group. In the ensuing fight, a knife in Jock's possession injured two of the Bulgarian men, one of who died as a result of the injury. Jock maintains that he only used the knife to defend himself. Neutral witnesses have supported his version of events. Jock was held in pre-trial detention for two years, during which time he spent a substantial period in solitary confinement. Almost completely without human contact, Jock was only allowed 90 minutes in the prison courtyard each day, without the company of other prisoners. In December 2009 Jock's trial began. Incomplete initial investigations resulted in the failure to identiy the two Roma men involved in the original altercation, as well as other key witnesses for the defence. Despite this, Jock was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment. He was also ordered to pay an excessively high amount in compensation - over €200,000. 2012-04-13T12:58:57+00:00