SURGE IN BRITONS EXPORTED FOR TRIAL

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH - ANDREW GILLIGAN

The number of people in Britain seized under the controversial "no-evidence-needed" European Arrest Warrant rose by more than 50 per cent last year, figures obtained by The Sunday Telegraph show.

In total 1,032 people – almost three a day – were detained and extradited by British police on the orders of European prosecutors in the 12 months to April, up from 683 in 2008-09. The Home Office expects a further 70 per cent rise, to 1,700 cases, next year.

The increase will fuel growing political concern about the "unfair" and "disproportionate" nature of the warrants, which British courts have little power to challenge.

Supporters of the warrants say that in an increasingly borderless Europe their role has become vital, but human rights campaigners say that the warrants place British citizens at the mercy of some European legal systems whose standards and safeguards are lower.

Catherine Heard, the policy officer at Fair Trials International, said: “The over-rigid nature of the system and the absence of basic, EU-wide defence rights have seen people being extradited to serve sentences after grossly unfair trials, or spending months in pretrial detention waiting to prove their innocence.”