“We hadn’t even heard of the European Arrest Warrant,” Frank Symeou says despondently. “Why would we?”
“I spoke outside the magistrates’ court, saying that it’s an erosion of our civil liberties. And it is. But I think more people need to be aware of it, especially in the UK. Well any Europeans actually, not just the UK - any Europeans.”
I couldn’t agree more, so, as promised, here’s my best attempt to explain a very complex case and a very complex piece of EU legislation. I had the privilege to interview Andrew Symeou and his family for nearly two hours earlier this year, hearing their tortuous case first hand.
—————–
Andrew Symeou describes it as the best holiday of his life. “It was two weeks of fun in Zante, Greece, to celebrate the end of my A-levels,” he says. “We were by the pool during the day and out on the strip, in the clubs, at night.”
But an evening back at his home in London ten months later was one the 19-year-old student will never forget. Tucking into a bowl of pasta in front of the TV, he heard the doorbell ring before finding four plain clothed police officers on his doorstep. They were there to arrest him and begin extradition proceedings against him for a crime he insists he didn’t commit - against someone he claims never to have met.
Andrew’s mother Helen remembers him “just continuing to eat that pasta. The police officer was putting the bowl down and he’d pick the bowl up again. I think he was just trying to do something so normal: ‘I’m just eating my food, you’re not here, this isn’t happening.’”
He was promptly arrested for the manslaughter of Jonathan Hiles, a gifted ice hockey player, and a fellow British holidaymaker in Zante that fateful summer. Hiles died after falling from a raised podium in a nightclub.
The revelation nearly a year after Andrew’s return from his holiday that he was under arrest was shock enough. But the potential consequences on his life of a piece of EU legislation soon hit home when he was lying in a police cell for the night, waiting to hear whether or not he would make bail. “One of the things I remember the next day was a woman officer, when I was getting into the van, saying to me: ‘Oh! Are you going to Greece? Are you going back to Greece?’” Andrew recalls. “I just said I hope not.”
The EAW came into force in Britain in January 2004 as a result of a European law intended to hasten the previously protracted extradition of terrorist suspects. Since then, its use has attracted increasing controversy.
“The government kept it almost like a secret,” Frank Symeou says. “It was brought in under sort of terrorism laws - it’s stealth legislation almost. That’s what they’re using; it’s a knee jerk reaction to terrorism.”
The Symeou family’s battle against the warrant has attracted support from, among others, politicians including former Conservative MP Neil Hamilton and leading figures in the UK Independence Party.
More than that, they have attracted support from several campaigning organisations.
Click here for a statement by human rights organisation Liberty and here for one by Fair Trials International.
So many high profile individuals and organisations have rallied - with so few reservations - to the Symeou cause mostly because of what the family has described as the “blatant fabrication” of the police records - and evidence that the satirical magazine Private Eye has criticised as being “flawed, contradictory and in places ludicrous”. (Private Eye has one of the clearest explanations of the case - see here).
But, the key difference between the EAW and normal extradition procedures is that there is no requirement for any evidence to be provided (to, in this case a British court) until after extradition has already taken place. It therefore does not matter how “ludicrous” the case is; as long as the forms have been filled out correctly, the British authorities are powerless to intervene.
Fair Trials International, a charity that defends the rights of those facing charges in a country other than their own, chose Andrew as their “Spotlight” case for the month of February. Sabine Zanker, head of the organisation’s legal team, highlights at least 11 key concerns about the conduct in which the case has been investigated.
These include: claims by two of Andrew’s friends that they were beaten while being interviewed by Greek police and threatened until they gave statements implicating him; the fact that no attempt was ever made by the Greek authorities to get a statement from Andrew; and the disappearance from the case file of crucial CCTV evidence.
Andrew’s father asserts that “more people need to be aware of [the EAW], especially in the UK.”
“In Greece for example, pre-trial detention could be up to 18 months, not 28 days, 42 days, you know what we’re arguing in this country. Eighteen months pre-trial detention - waiting for your case to be heard. So where does that put you? That then is against our civil liberties. [It is against] habeus corpus, Magna Carta - what our law is based on.”
But not everyone is opposed to the legislation. Richard Corbett, Labour MEP for Yorkshire and Humber, is a keen supporter of the warrant and refutes many of the criticisms made by supporters of Andrew Symeou.
“You might want to talk to the family of the victim, who have quite a different take on this,” he says. He contends that “evidence was, of course, presented to the court in Greece”, is not convinced that Symeou could be imprisoned for up to 18 months without bail, and on the point made by Frank Symeou on the issue of habeas corpus, he says: “28 days/42 days etc. is about how long people can be detained without charge, which is quite different.”
In a post on his blog entitled: “The European Arrest Warrant should be supported,” Mr Corbett wrote: “I wonder what they would have said if the suspected London bomber, sent back from Italy under an EAW to face prosecution in Britain, could not have been sent back without first going through the lengthy process of an Italian court hearing plus appeal (by which time he would have been held for years on remand or, more likely, scarpered).”
That bomber was Hussain Osman who, after fleeing to Italy, was brought back to London using the EAW and eventually convicted of the botched attempt to repeat the carnage of the 7 July 2005 London attacks.
But while the EAW may have resulted in success in the case of terrorism suspects, the lack of checks in the system means that many campaigners fear miscarriages of justice abounding. Robert Oulds, director of anti-EU think tank The Bruges Group claims to have been told by a retired senior police officer who was working for the Home Office handling requests for extradition under the EAW “that they go through on the nod”.
“Those [being extradited] are just taken in and handed over without any consideration of their guilt or innocence - and without any of the safeguards which had existed in our extradition system,” he says.
Since the law came into force across Europe, the average time taken to execute a warrant is estimated to have fallen from more than nine months to 43 days. That does not include cases where the person consents to surrender, where the average time taken is just 13 days.
There is also a distinct imbalance in the number of requests for extradition of European citizens from Britain made by other countries - and the number made by Britain to be extradited here. According to the Serious Organised Crime Agency, in the year 2007/08, 2,483 warrants were issued against British citizens, while only 182 were issued to extradite suspects to the UK. A total of 415 Britons were actually surrendered to other EU states using the warrant, while only 107 people were extradited to Britain.
Gerard Batten, a UKIP MEP, says: “As a politician, I don’t take a view on Mr Symeou’s guilt or innocence, but it is obvious that the evidence against him would not stand up for five minutes in an English court of law. His case perfectly illustrates all that is wrong with the EAW.”
This week, Andrew was given the right to appeal to the House of Lords. But as his mother said to me, his life is still in limbo. His battle for justice won’t be over for some time yet. And that’s not the mention that if this case is as it seems - a miscarriage of justice - then what about Jonathan Hiles and his family? It would be an equally grave miscarriage of justice for them.
Who said the EU doesn’t matter?
(4 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5)
Loading ...
It is good subject to discuss, and the post attempts to present two sides of the argument (to some extent).
However, I think that it would be a good idea to take a step back, and to think about some basic issues.
Goods, services, capital and people are supposed to move freely within the European Union.
A little late, but still, these rights are complemented by an evolving area of freedom, security and justice.
The EU countries also have an obligation to uphold fundamental rights.
Logically, my civil rights are not eroded if I have to answer for an alleged crime in another EU member state. - The argument against appearing in another state builds on the assumption that my rights exist only within a closed national system.
In principle the defendant has his rights, where he answers the charges; naturally, where the alleged crime took place.
There are, of course, problems, real or imaginary.
How credible are the accounts given by obviously self-interested accused persons?
How well protected are defendants (or civil parties) against miscarriages of justice?
I have an inkling that there are more than a few cases, where police procedures have raised grave doubts, in Britain as in other countries.
Some member states are notorious for high levels of corruption, including courts of law.
Still, I would not want to prejudge this individual case, at least not without some reflection about the fundamentals (although they sell much less tabloid copy).
I think we should draw a clear distinction between the European arrest warrant and the potential for miscarriages of Justice in certain jurisdictions. The EAW doesn’t speak to the guilt or innocence of the accused, it simply expedites the process of trying someone in the country where the alleged crime was committed.
When you are travelling to a country, you are implicitly agreeing to be bound by its laws. If the police or judicial processes in that country are deficient, that needs to be tackled in the context of a European harmonisation process for judicial laws and procedures.
Someone being tried for a crime in a foreign country faces certain problems - lack of familiarity with its laws, linguistic differences, distance from family friends and social supports. Every effort should be made to minimise these - particularly by reducing any period held on remand.
But lets not get caught up in Tabloid “corrupt foreigners not giving our boys a fair deal” type stereotypical journalism. The laws in one country are not inherently better than another, though they may be different. In an age of increased travel and trade, it is in all our interests to try to harmonise these as much as possible - obviously by seeking to achieve the highest universal standards rather than by levelling down to the lowest.
That is what the European Charter of Fundamental Rights (enshrined in Lisbon Treaty) is all about - but of course the UK is against Lisbon, isn’t it? You can’t have it both ways.
@ frankschnittger
You sum up everything that is wrong with the EU and why it is a corrupt and craven organisation committed to a new fascist euro-state.
The simple fact half of the EU comprises what we used to call third world countries - corrupt, failed states with poor systems of government and justice, as well as being economic basket cases (which the UK pays for). This is well documented for countries like Bulgaria, Greece and Romania. The ECHR might theoretically apply in those countries but the simple fact is in practical terms it does not exist.
Are you really saying you’d be happy to rot in a Romanian jail for 5+ years for a crime you didn’t commit in the vain hope that the Romanian legal system allows you to appeal to Strasbourg. I sincerely hope it is you and others like you that suffer under this fascist and, in the UK at least, technically illegal (and treasonable) legislation.