EXTRADITION PROCESS ABUSES SUSPECTS

Robert Hörchner

INTER PRESS SERVICE - DAVID CRONIN

Robert Hörchner can only sleep for two hours at night before the sweating starts. His wife Annelies wakes up frequently, too; each time she hears a noise outside she opens the curtains, expecting to see police at the front door. The couple are traumatised because Robert spent ten months locked up in a filthy Polish cell. He has been accused of holding the lease to a property where cannabis was grown but insists that he is innocent.

Catherine Heard, campaigner with the London-based organisation Fair Trials International, argued that a "proportionality test" should be introduced into the arrest warrant system. That test would allow authorities in one EU state to decide against processing an extradition order from another if it does not regard the alleged offence as sufficiently serious.

"The European arrest warrant was intended to improve cross-border cooperation and standards of justice but in too many cases this new system has resulted in grave injustice," Heard said. "People are being ripped from their homes and families, to spend months awaiting trial in appalling conditions, to face charges based on the flimsiest of evidence, or to serve a jail sentence imposed after a grossly unfair trial. Vital safeguards must be built into the EU justice system or we will see more cases of injustice."

His wife Annelies said that their entire family - the couple have twin daughters, who have recently turned 27 - have suffered enormously. "For us, for our children, it’s a horror story."