Unusually, this story had a happy ending but not before Mr Arapi spent a year fighting extradition.

As The Daily Mail reported on 15^th June:

"If extradited, Mr Arapi faced the 'nightmare' of being forced to part from his wife, a newborn baby and his two young daughters, aged three and seven, to spend years in a foreign jail.

Mr Arapi was arrested at Gatwick Airport on a European Arrest Warrant in June last year as he returned from a month-long holiday in Albania with his wife Georgina, whom he married in 2006.

His extradition was ordered in March by a district judge at Westminster Magistrates' Court. 

Before the dramatic U-turn by the Italian authorities, Mr Arapi had been facing the ordeal of a two-day High Court battle against removal.

But Gemma Lindfield, appearing for the prosecutors office of the Republic of Italy, withdrew the arrest warrant supporting the extradition request.

Lord Justice Pitchford, sitting with Mr Justice Maddison, asked: 'Got the wrong man?'

Ms Lindfield replied: 'Yes.'

Apologising for her '11th-hour' application, she said the Italian authorities had received information last week that the Italian judiciary 'may have had the wrong identity of the person sought for the murder of Castillo Marcello'.

Fair Trials International supported Mr Arapi's case, saying he had a 'compelling' alibi that he did not leave the UK between 2000/06. "

From Virtual Globetrotting

Korydallos Prison Complex is the main prison of Greece, housing both maximum security men and women. Its most famous detainees are the notorious November 17 terrorist members. The prison has consistently been cited by Amnesty International as one of the worst prisons in Europe, both for its overcrowding and inhumane treatment of detainees. The Hellenic Parliament has vowed to improve conditions, but due to bureaucratic delays, little has changed.

A reminder, of the background, from Fair Trials International

In July 2007, Andrew Symeou went on holiday with friends to Zante, Greece. While Andrew was staying in Zante another young British man, Jonathan Hiles, fell off an unguarded stage platform in a night-club, became unconscious and, tragically, died two days later from his head injury. Andrew is accused of having struck Mr Hiles causing him to fall. However, witnesses have confirmed Andrew was not in the club at the time. [My emphasis]

 

  ·         Two of Andrew's friends were interviewed by Greek police after Andrew himself had left Zante. These young men reported that they were subjected to brutal treatment by the police, who held them for 8 hours without food or water. While in custody they were beaten, punched, slapped and threatened by the officers until they gave statements implicating Andrew in Mr Hiles' death. Andrew's friends immediately retracted the statements on their release and informed consular officials about the treatment they received.   ·         There is strong evidence that witness statements were manufactured by Zante police. The same police officers were reported as taking statements in two different places at the same time and witnesses gave word-for-word identical statements. CCTV footage showing those involved in the incident leaving the nightclub has been deleted and is not available to use in Andrew's defence.  

Extradition   ·         Despite the serious flaws with the case against him, the British courts refused to stop Andrew's extradition. On 1 May 2009, the High Court decided that Andrew Symeou should be extradited to Greece to face trial under a European Arrest Warrant ("EAW").

You might be asking yourself why you haven't heard about this. That is a very important question. As Klein Verzet puts it, the answer is that "This one isn't about making you feel guilty about being alive, earning a living and enjoying the fruits of your labour." The picture says it all.

Read more here . 4^th International Conference on Climate Change. The purpose of the Conference is to "call attention to new scientific research on the causes and consequences of climate change, and to economic analysis of the cost and effectiveness of proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

"The purpose of ICCC-4 is the same as it was for the first three events: to build momentum and public awareness of the global warming "realism" movement, a network of scientists, economists, policymakers, and concerned citizens who believe sound science and economics, rather than exaggeration and hype, ought to determine what actions, if any, are taken to address the problem of climate change."

Amen to that

There will also be a raffle with some great prices, proceeds also go to the Campaign.

Entry will cost £5 on the door before 9pm and £10 after, all proceeds will go to the Campaign. Under 18s are welcome before 9pm.

As you can see it will be a great evening with lots of entertainment for all tastes however we can not forget the reason why we are all congregating together, we are doing this for Andrew, not only for fundraising purposes but to remind him of the love and support he has back home. The 23rd May marks the 10 months he has been unjustly incarcerated. We must all have faith that the trial starting on the 4th June brings justice and Andrew home with us to start celebrating life and freedom!

Hope to see you all on sunday!

www.justice-for-symeou.com

Rulers don't like Common Law as it gives individuals rights and thus rulers seem determined to undermine it. Rulers like Civil Law as through it they can control its citizens rather than allow its citizens control of the state. In the UK we have just had our first trial without jury. The European Arrest Warrant allows people to be taken from the UK with no examination of the evidence, no right of appeal, just on the say so of another European court. Habeas Corpus is dead.

Also, Common Law breeds individualism that can flourish in a spirit of freedom. Great men and woman have grown in this culture of freedom. Civil Law breeds or rather forces conformity. Individualism is frowned upon and even repressed.

Baroness Helena Kennedy

The first mistake is a failure to see that law is cultural. ... Unlike the rest of Europe, which has what is called the 'civil law' system with codified laws and a career judiciary, we have a common law system. ... as new democracies have emerged around the world and sought to adopt a Western model they have most frequently replicated civil law systems because they are easier to take off the shelf. Their basic rules take the form of codes - huge statutes which set out the laws in detail, number by number, along with the central concepts and doctrines. For the most part the judges have little or no power to add to or subtract from the law, which is entirely contained in the codes. Their function is to interpret these rules.

The common law on the other hand was essentially created by judges as they decided actual cases. Judges in the higher courts dealt with appeals from lower courts and, in pursuit of a real rather than formal justice, took account of the experience of real litigants and real situations. One of the reasons why contemporary markets thrive in common-law-based nations is because Napoleonic, codified systems entrench bureaucracy. The dead hand of the state is heavier where there is little legal flexibility. The discretion vested in judges provides just enough 'give' to prevent rigidity. Even today, when large parts of the law are created by statutes passed in parliament, the judges have a significant role in developing the law. While our judges are drawn from the ranks of practising lawyers with everyday experience of representing clients, judges in the civil law system are civil servants. judging is a career from the start and the training of judges is separate from that of lawyers. ... The civil system is an inquisitorial system, whereas our system is adversarial.

In many ways laws are the autobiography of a nation and in Britain we have many proud stories to tell but we also have shameful chapters. This book is meant to be an alarm call about the way our liberties are being eroded. A serious abandonment of principle is in train; all of us have to say it's time to stop. 

(Baroness Helena Kennedy from her book Just Law 2005.)

Sir Winston Churchill

With the establishment of a system of royal courts, giving the same justice all over the country, the old diversity of local law was rapidly broken down, and a common law to the whole land and to all men soon took its place. A modern lawyer, transported to the England of Henry's predecessor, would find himself in strange surroundings; with the system that Henry bequeathed to his son, he would feel almost at home. That is the measure of the great King's achievement1. He had laid the foundations of the English Common law, upon which succeeding generations would build. Changes in the design would arise, but its main outlines were not to be altered.

It was in these fateful and formative years that the English speaking peoples began to devise methods of determining legal disputes which survive in substance to this day. A man can only be accused of a civil or criminal offense which is clearly defined and known to the law. The judge is an umpire. He adjudicates on such evidence as the parties choose to produce. Witnesses must testify in public and on oath. They are examined and cross-examined, not by the judge, but by the litigants themselves or their legally qualified and privately hired representatives. The truth of their testimony is weighed not by the judge by [sic] by twelve good men and true, and it is only when this jury has determined the facts that the judge is empowered to impose sentence, punishment, or penalty according to law. All might seem very obvious, even a platitude, until one contemplates the alternative system which still dominates a large portion of the world. Under Roman law, and systems derived from it, a trial in those turbulent centuries, and in some countries even today, is often an inquisition. The judge makes his own investigation into the civil wrong or the public crime, and such investigation is largely uncontrolled. The suspect can be interrogated in private. He must answer all questions put to him. His right to be represented by a legal adviser is restricted. The witness against him can testify in secret and in his absence. And only when these processes have been accomplished is the accusation or charge against him formulated and published. Thus often arises secret intimidation, enforced confessions, torture, and blackmailed pleas of guilty. These sinister dangers were extinguished from the Common Law of England more than six centuries ago. By the time Henry II's great-grandson, Edward I had died English criminal and civil procedure had settled into a mould and tradition which in the mass govern the English speaking peoples to-day. ...

Digests and codes imposed in the Roman manner by an omnipotent state on a subject people were alien to the spirit and tradition of England. The law was already there, in the customs of the land, and it was only a matter of discovering it by diligent study and comparison of recorded decisions in earlier cases, and applying it to the particular dispute before the court. In the course of time the Common Law changed. Lawyers of the reign of Henry II read into the statements of their predecessors of the tenth century meanings and principles which their authors never intended, and applied them to the novel conditions and problems of their own day. No Matter. Here was a precedent. If a judge could be shown that a custom or something like it had been recognised and acted upon in an earlier and similar case he would be more ready, if it accorded with his sense of what was just and with the current feelings of the community, to follow it in the dispute before him. This slow but continuous growth of what is popularly known as "case law" ultimately achieved much the same freedoms and rights for the individual as are enshrined in other countries by written instruments such as the Declarations of the Rights of Man and the spacious and splendid provisions of the American Declaration of Independence and constitutional guarantees of civil rights. But English justice advanced very cautiously. Even the framers of Magna Carta did not attempt to lay down new law or proclaim any broad general principles. This was because both sovereign and subject were in practice bound by the Common Law, and the liberties of Englishmen rested not on any enactment of the State, but on immemorial slow-growing custom declared by juries of free men who gave their verdicts case by case in open court.

1The Birth of Britain, vol 1, Winston S. Churchill, Dodd, Mead & Co, New York 1956, page 222

Lord Tebbit

The English are, of course, a European nation, but we are different by virtue of our history from the others. The right of a German or Frenchman to free speech is a grant by law - essentially an entitlement rather than a right. Here, it requires a law to set limits upon that right, which in this Kingdom is (I'm sorry Professor Dawkins) the God-given right of an Englishman or woman from birth.

The basic assumptions underlying the two systems of law, English Common law and European law, are such that they cannot exist side by side.

Nor is it just a matter of law. Our history has shaped our society to be different.

Churchill was right. We should wish European union well - so long as it does not seek to cross the Channel. Certainly I have no ill will towards our friends on the mainland, but I think it is time the British dog got out of the federalist manger. I could live happily on the mainland as a foreigner. I believe that we should have a treaty relationship with other European nations covering matters of mutual interest, but that our Parliament should remain fully sovereign.

Divorce is never easy, but it may be better than persisting in an unhappy marriage.

Norman Tebbit 22nd Jan, 2010, Daily Telegraph

Lord Tebbit of Chingford is one of Britain's most outspoken conservative commentators and politicians. He was a senior cabinet minister in Margaret Thatcher's government and is a former Chairman of the Conservative Party.

 The Lisbon Treaty acknowledges the importance of tourism outlining, for the first time, a specific competence for the European Union in this field and allowing for decisions to be taken by qualified majority (Title XXII Tourism, Art. 195)

From The European Commissions DECLARATION OF MADRID WITHIN THE SCOPE OF THE INFORMAL MINISTERIAL MEETING FOR TOURISM UNDER THE SPANISH PRESIDENCY IN APRIL 2010 IN MADRID UNDER THE MOTTO "TOWARDS A SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE TOURISM MODEL"

Doesn't it make you wonder why we  bother to have a parliamentary election in the UK, when even tourism is controlled by our real government in Brussels.

Also from the document

The raising of public awareness and promotion of responsible attitudes of European tourists is also essential in order to increase the demand for responsible tourist products and services in Europe.

This begs the questions. 1. What is a responsible tourist?

2. Isn't there a suggestion here that some action must be taken against the irresponsible tourist?

and from page 3.

3. Facilitating the access to holidays to groups with impaired mobility or those who are socially and/or economically disadvantaged, promoting as the same time a better and more prolonged use of tourist infrastructures, the maintenance of tourist activity in the regions for longer periods, and a strengthening of the feeling of European citizenship

Hmmm - holidays become a right for some, for the taxpayer to support?

pge 4.

 The Member States declare their willingness:

4. To support measures and initiatives encouraging the lengthening of the high season in tourism, thus contributing to reduce seasonality and to maintain tourist employment in off-season.

If this wasn't from the EU's website, I would have thought that it was some sort of strange joke.

St George was not English. Indeed, he was born in (what is now) Turkey and was martyred in Israel (which some prefer to call Palestine). Yet his story is bound up with that of England, for it is a story of a quest for religious liberty. Born of Christian parents during the late third century, George became a soldier - a loyal and successful one - in the army of Emperor Diocletian. When in AD302 the Emperor issued an edict that every Christian soldier in the army should be arrested and every other soldier forced to offer a sacrifice to the Pagan gods, George refused. He was neither going to bow the knee to false idols nor honour religious tyranny. Just as the English were eventually to do, George rejected the notion of ‘Divine Right' and king worship. He renounced the Emperor's edict and declared before his fellow soldiers that he was a Christian and would worship only Jesus Christ. Diocletian had George tortured by laceration on a wheel of swords. He was eventually beheaded for his faith, a witness which caused others to convert to Christianity who were themselves martyred for their faith in Jesus."

  By Bryan, via Cranmer

'I see the debate is framed here as it is in my own country; as a struggle between liberalism and conservatism.

'Yet no matter how the struggle turns out, both the liberals and the conservatives feel frustration, no matter who "wins", neither seem to enjoy the victory as "their" party fails to live up to its promises once in power.

1. The Riga Two

The Riga two story should have ended when they were flown back to Britain, but it didn't. As Roger Helmer, MEP, put it to EU Commissioner Viviane Reding:

and the Commissioner's reponse? As Helmer puts it:

"Reding's answer was that all these problems would be solved, eventually, by the reforms she proposed to make in her new five-year term. ... Commissioner Reding talked of her ambitious and aspirational plans for EU-wide justice and citizens' rights.  EU citizens would enjoy far greater rights than they had under national laws, she said."

So the answer is, as always, "More EU".

2. The Budapest Two

William, Earl of Dartmouth MEP reminds us in This is Plymouth, how Michael Turner and Jason McGoldrick were:

... carted off from their homes to prison in Budapest, with no evidence of guilt or innocence being heard here, under the European Arrest Warrant that is championed by South West Liberal Democrat MEP Graham Watson. Such is the Liberal Democrats' fanaticism for a European Union superstate.

3. Andrew Symeou

Just an update. He now has a trial in Greece, June 4^th, 2010, almost a year since our puppet government extradited him, under the EAW, to a filthy Greek prison.

Fair Trials International are campaigning against this destruction of our freedoms.

From Fair Trials International, Justice in Europe:

In the last decade, the European Union has changed the face of criminal justice in Europe. Each year thousands of people are transferred under Europe's new fast-track extradition system (the "European Arrest Warrant") to face trials or serve prison sentences in a foreign country. Police and courts from different countries now hold and exchange ever greater amounts of evidence and criminal records data.

The Head of the Government tarnished his reputation repeatedly during his career, and should have deserved not only the condemnation of honest people, but also he should have been shamed and any authority to govern should have been removed. Why did people tolerate and even applaud his crimes? On the one hand there is a moral indifference, on the other a certain shrewdness and a self interest. The majority of Italians were aware of his criminal activity but preferred to endorse and vote for a strong person rather than an honourable one. Unfortunately Italians had to choose between duty and self interest, and even though they know what their duty should be, they choose for selfish reasons. Therefore a mediocre and coarse man with eloquent and ...

... convincing communication skills becomes a perfect example and mirror of contemporary Italian culture. In the normal run of things he would be, at best, the leader of a party with a modest following.

He is a slightly absurd person with a bombastic manner and his immodesty is offensive to the sensitive ear. But in Italy he becomes the Head of the Government!

It is difficult to find a more complete example of an Italian - an admirer of force, venal, a corrupt corrupter, a catholic who doesn't believe in God, conceited, vain, and a man who pretends to be both kindly and a good family man, but who has numerous affairs. He uses the people he despises, surrounds himself with the dishonest, the liars, the inept, the profiteers, and those who can act a part and "con" the gullible public - but like every acted role it has no real character. He imagines himself to be the character he wants to represent.

The original (unabridged) version was written 1945 by the Italian novelist Elsa Morante a few days after the execution of Mussolini by the Partisans.

Translation: Nicky Browne

-----------------
Comment. As we become gradually accustomed to rule by a political Elite, rather than by true representatives, is this a sign of things to come for those of us under EU rule?