BRITISH DEPUTY prime minister Nick Clegg has strongly supported use of the European Arrest Warrant, despite mounting criticism of it from Conservative and Labour MPs. However, he said the measure must be used proportionately.
“Of course, methods can always be improved. The European Arrest Warrant, for example, has streamlined the way suspects are extradited between member states,” Mr Clegg said, during a speech in The Hague in the Netherlands.
“It has helped serve justice on a failed London bomber caught in Italy, a German serial killer tracked down in Spain, a gang of armed robbers arrested in six different EU states. But there are instances of it being used in trivial cases.
“We need to look at how we prevent that so that use is always proportionate and citizens can have confidence in the system. But the principle remains: crime crosses borders; crime-fighting must too,” he said.
The extradition of UK citizens has become a controversial issue, particularly following the decision to send a 65-year-old businessman, Christopher Tappin, to face charges in the United States that he illegally exported missile parts to Iraq.
The extradition of UK citizens to other European Union countries has also caused concern, particularly after Devon businessman Michael Turner was extradited two years before Hungarian authorities were ready to decide whether they would charge him.
The number of such extraditions are rising each year, said lobby group Fair Trial International. In 2010, more than 1,000 people were extradited from the UK to another EU country, compared to 699 in the previous year.
Last month Mr Turner, who was extradited in November 2009, told the home affairs committee that he had been held for four months without charge in horrendous conditions in a Budapest prison. “During [this] he was only interviewed by police once [at midnight, with no lawyer, and sub-standard interpretation facilities]. The English court was powerless to stop this abuse of the European Arrest Warrant,” said Fair trial.
