In 2005, Osman Hussain, who tried to blow up the London Underground on 21st July that year, was extradited from Italy using the European Arrest Warrant.
This is held up as an example of the utility of the EAW. But is it true that a terrorist like Osman could not be extradited from Italy to the UK without the EAW, particularly in light of the existence of Interpol?
It could, but you would need to initiate an extradition process. Extradition processes depend on bilateral treaties (if you don't have one with the country the criminal is in, you can't get him/her extradited) and generally are a long, twisted, problematic burocratic nightmare.
The EAW was created to ease that processes. Essentially it assumes that all the judiciary systems among EU members are fair, and thus detainees are going to have a fair trial anywhere so, for some types of crimes which exist in all of the countries, such arson, rape, murder, kidnapping or trafficking, no dual-criminality checks or other judicial burdens are made on the detainees, greatly speeding their surrendering to the requiring state.
The common process of extradition, even between allied states, is lengthy and costly. The European Commission regularly makes factsheets for this and other subjects (PDF):
The European Justice portal also has a lot of information about this subject including statistics about its use:
The previous average of extradition time of 1 year dropped to 48 days:
How much faster are extradition proceedings now?
Before the EAW was introduced extradition used to take an average of one year, but now that has been cut to an average of 48 days, the European Commission says. A suspect must be handed over within a maximum of 90 days after arrest. In cases where a suspect agrees to surrender the average extradition time is 16 days.
Streamlining the process made extradition easier with fewer costs. In fact some controversy has risen due to the misuse of the EAW. Some examples are:
It results from the evaluation visits that EAWs have been issued in cases such as the following:
- detention of 0.45 grams of cannabis;
- detention of 1.5 grams of marijuana;
- detention of 0.15 grams of heroin;
- detention of 3 ecstasy tablets;
- theft of two car tyres;
- driving a car under the influence of alcohol, where the limit was not significantly exceeded (0.81 mg/l)
- theft of a piglet
Calling an EAW for trivial cases is something actively being discouraged by the European Commission.
From the UK point of view, it mostly helps in deporting foreign criminals. From the House of Commons Library briefing paper on the EAW:
ACPO told us that the UK also benefits from the EAW because it is an attractive destination for criminals. In London, 28 per cent of people arrested are foreign nationals of which half are from the EU. The vast majority of UK surrenders to other EU countries under the EAW are non-UK citizens — 95 per cent of over 4,000 extraditions in the four years to April 2013. In other words, most outward EAWs concern other Member States seeking their own citizens for crimes committed back home. This is not quite the case for extraditions to the UK, where just over half of the 507 people surrendered were British nationals.
In relation to brexit and EU-UK cooperation on preventing crime, the BBC wrote the following:
In response, the Department for Exiting the European Union said protecting the public was an "absolute priority".
"Any drop in the breadth and quality of co-operation would have a direct impact on public safety and on our collective ability to deliver justice across Europe," a spokesman said.
Earlier this year the chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland said non-participation in the scheme was "probably the biggest practical vulnerability" facing law enforcement in Northern Ireland post-Brexit.
George Hamilton told a House of Lords committee there would be "very real operational consequences if there are no alternative arrangements in place around exchange of material and people by way of a European arrest warrant".
This shows that the EAW is seen as a vital tool in policing by the UK government and high-ranking police officers (mr. Hamilton is the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland).
