EUROPEAN ARREST WARRANT STILL ‘DELIVERING INJUSTICE’

Michael Turner

EU OBERSVER - VALENTINA POP

Fast-track extraditions under the "European Arrest Warrant" are still landing innocent people in foreign prisons, prompting distrust among national prosecutors, with over 250 cases last year being brought to the EU's judicial co-operation agency, Eurojust, for mediation.

A total of 256 cases were mediated by Eurojust in 2009 whenever two or several member states disagreed over the scope and the proportionality of a "European arrest warrant", the agency's annual report shows.

Several case studies from Fair Trial International, a London-based non-governmental organisation, show that this fast-track extradition scheme allows people to be sent over to another country where they often do not understand the proceedings and charges brought against them.

A British national, Michael Turner, was held in a former KGB prison in Hungary for four months after being extradited under a European arrest warrant on 2 November 2009. During that time, he was interviewed only once by police, on alleged fraud surrounding the failure of his holiday homes business in Hungary and was ultimately sent back to the UK. Now 5 months after his extradition was carried out, the investigation is still ongoing with charges neither brought nor dropped against him.

"Although the European arrest warrant was intended to deliver justice, the current system is in practice resulting in serious injustice," Catherine Heard from Fair Trials International told EUobserver.