STAFFORDSHIRE CHEF MISTAKENLY ARRESTED FOR ITALY MURDER SPEAKS OF ORDEAL

Edmond Arapi with his wife, Georgina, and youngest child

THE TELEGRAPH - REBECCA LEFROT

They were typical holidaymakers returning to Britain – a married couple with their two young daughters, flying back to Gatwick Airport after a month of summer sun.

But when Edmond Arapi reached passport control with his family he was astonished to be told that he was under arrest, accused of murdering a man in Italy five years earlier. Mr Arapi had no knowledge of the crime. When it was committed in Genoa in 2004 he was 1,000 miles away, in the Staffordshire café where he works as a chef, and he had cast iron evidence to prove it.

Yet when he was arrested in June last year he was told not only that he was suspected of the killing, but that his guilt had already been established in court. In Italy, he had been tried and convicted in his absence, and sentenced to 16 years in jail.

His case was taken up by the campaign group Fair Trials International. Jago Russell, its chief executive, said the case provided “compelling human evidence of the need to reform Europe’s fast-track extradition system”.

The group points to numerous cases in which it says the warrants, which were designed as a fast-track method, have led to the perversion of justice. They include the case of Deborah Dark, a British grandmother who was arrested in Turkey, Spain and the UK because of a French warrant which was eventually overturned last month.

Mr Russell said: “Thankfully, Italy woke up to its terrible mistake but in most cases these requests are simply rubber-stamped, even where the British courts themselves recognise serious injustice.

“We are not opposed to an effective system of extradition within Europe; people should not be able to escape justice by crossing Europe’s open borders. But the current system, rushed through in the wake of 9/11, lacks the necessary safeguards against abuse and error. Europe needs to look at this again, to work together to create an extradition system that is both efficient and fair.”