"trials in absentia" and Andrew Symeou

Royal Courts of InjusticePlanning your holiday? You might want to think again about travelling to mainland Europe. Although I cannot find reports in the press, it seems that Andrew Symeou might have lost his appeal against extradition to Greece, through the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) procedures.

 

In the meantime laws and the EAW, aimed at terrorists, are being used to extradite holiday makers for crimes they didn't commit, to an EU State whose Napoleonic justice system is a world away from the British Common Law ideas of justice.

To make matters worse, our EU parliament has voted to include "trials in absentia" so that you might find yourself tried and convicted not only in your absence but also for a crime about which you knew nothing.

Fair Trials International (FTI) raised the case of.......


.... Mr "X" to our Justice Ministry when opposing this latest piece of legislation. Mr "X", on holiday in Romania, gave some money to a beggar, then found himself accused of sex with a minor and spent 3 months in detention before being released. 2½ years after returning to the UK, to his great surprise, he heard, one day, that he had been sentenced to 7 years imprisonment despite having left his contact details with the Romanian authorities. Within days of receiving this news, and whilst working in Tenerife, he was arrested on a European Arrest Warrant and was extradited to Romania. FTI attended the trial and judged that it was not conducted in a manner to ensure that he could defend himself. The alleged victim didn't attend. Mr "X" was not allowed to speak during the one hour hearing plus there is no possibility of appeal.

 

Meanwhile, in the UK, we are rushing headlong to implement EU laws as we are desperate to show that we are "Good Europeans" and we adopt the principle of "Mutual Recognition" of each EU State's laws. We fail to understand that, as Open Europe argues, some EU States, as in the case of Romania, fail to maintain "acceptable standards of judicial protection".

The case of Michael Tonge and Lee Yarrow has been raised by Amnesty International.

 

On holiday in Crete, in 1999, they were attacked by local youths and Michael was stabbed. The youths ransacked their apartment, while Michael and Lee were arrested, interrogated, physically abused and threatened with death unless they admitted guilt. Released on bail, they returned to the UK but, after seeking legal advice, decided not to return to Crete fearful of torture and an unfair trial. In 2005 the Greek government issued an European Arrest Warrant. Despite appeals, they were handed over to the Greeks. Lee had charges dropped and Michael was released a few months after his trial. Amnesty has had no response to its request for an investigation.

All this must sound horribly familiar to Andrew Symeou, who was expecting the result of his appeal against extradition to Greece, to be announced by the High Court on Friday May 1st. Gerald Batten, MEP, spoke in the debate on this "in absentia" law, in the EU parliament in September 2008. He supports the old idea of "an English or Scottish Court to be able to consider the prima facie evidence against a suspect before granting extradition" and for a fair trial

"I do this in order to protect the interests of British citizens, such as exemplified by the case of Andrew Symeou, a 19-year-old London man who faces extradition to Greece on 30 September on a manslaughter charge. The evidence against him is extremely suspect, and no account can be taken of that or the fact that witnesses have been allegedly tortured in order to extract statements from them."

Even if you can afford a holiday in the EU this year, you might want to explore the beauties of Britain instead; a country whose justice system, based on Common Law, we can trust - just.

Posted on 04 May, 2009 by alfred

Filed under Law


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