Andrew Symeou update & "You can forget about getting British justice"

Wales NewsWales on-line seems to be almost the only media outlet reporting on this landmark case. It says:

Two High Court justices yesterday threw out an appeal by 20-year-old Andrew Symeou of North London against the proposed extradition. ...


Jonathan's dad, 58-year-old service engineer Denzil Hiles, said: "We are very pleased, it's been going on for so long.

"But it is only another tick in the box. He will appeal to the House of Lords and to the human rights people as well now.

"I want him to go back to Greece to face the court there.

and

Mr Symeou's QC, Edward Fitzgerald, yesterday argued the case was "tainted" because Greek police had beaten up witnesses and fabricated evidence.

But Lord Justice Laws and Mr Justice Ouseley, said yesterday there was no reason for supposing the Greek courts would not deal fairly with problems raised by the case, including accusations that statements had been obtained by manipulation.

They said in a joint written judgement there was "no sound evidence" Mr Symeou's human rights would be breached.

Fair Trials International said: "Today's decision is a huge blow and we hope it will be overturned on appeal."

Sabina Frediani, Liberty campaigns coordinator, said: "This alarming case highlights the dangers of summary extradition.

In a similar vein, The Daily Telegraph reporter, Alasdair Palmer, said in an article on 20 Mar 2009  "You can forget about getting British justice":

our courts will be compelled to order the extradition of British citizens to any EU country that wants them. The state that wants to extradite a Briton will simply have to sign a form which says that it told the Briton of his trial, and gave him some form of legal representation.

Such an assurance will, in many cases, be worthless - at least without independent investigation and verification.

Bulgaria, for example, is the only country in the EU that claims to have implemented "99 per cent of EU regulations". In fact, even the EU recognises that almost none of its regulations is complied with in Bulgaria. That country is also universally recognised as being totally corrupt, with the police and judiciary being particularly rotten.

The EU enthusiasts, however, simply pretend that "variations in the standards of justice" do not exist. So once the forms have been received by the British government, that will be that - you will have to be packed off to serve the sentence imposed on you by a Bulgarian court, at a trial at which you were not present, and may not even have been told about. And it doesn't matter what the offence is: it could be a traffic misdemeanour, it could be misuse of your credit card, or it could be murder.

Our Government has not just enthusiastically endorsed the new regulations: it has sponsored the legislation, passed by a huge majority in the EU Parliament last September. Why? No one seems to know.

The Ministry of Justice has said the change will "help our citizens", but I cannot see how it will help anyone to lose any protection that the British government might have been able to provide against the injustices perpetrated by foreign courts. That, however, is the only "benefit" that this new regulation will deliver.

Do not be fooled by Labour's weasel words. This is about showing the EU bureaucrats that we are committed to "ever-closer integration" - and if that means giving up our ability to protect British citizens from injustice, then that's just fine by our Government.

See also The BBC's "Student loses extradition battle"

Posted on 05 May, 2009 by alfred

Filed under Freedom


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Comments


As you can imagine we're spitting tacks about this. Gerard Batten has been supporting the family all the way through this, he was at the court and gave interviews to several stations. None of which were shown unfortunately.

Grr. But you can't make people show the stories, you can only offer the comments one them.

Tim Worstall
UKIP press office.
  Tim Worstall // 05 May, 2009 / 06:24:55
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Tim, This seems such an important case for all of us, not just for the poor Symeou family. I am surprised at the lack of media interest. Initially all I could find was a comment on http://englandexpects.blogs...
  alfred // 05 May, 2009 / 06:36:16
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