Telegraph (UK) – EU extradition treaty means British law no longer protects us

August 8, 2009 by Infowars Ireland

Andrew Symeou, with his sister Sophie (left) and mother Helen, outside Westminster Magistrates Court last year

By Christopher Booker
www.telegraph.co.uk

Andrew Symeou was deported to Greece, where he was not allowed bail because he is not domiciled there, says Christopher Booker.

In 2001, when EU leaders gathered in Laeken, Belgium, to plan their next great leap forward to European integration – the ill-fated EU constitution – they also agreed on what they saw as another bold symbol of their wish to see Europe politically and legally united: the European Arrest Warrant. Fired by the recent 9/11 outrage, they agreed that the courts of any country could call on those of another to order the automatic extradition of anyone suspected of offences under 32 headings, with such crimes as terrorism, drug-running and “xenophobia” high on their list.

Even then, fears were expressed that such a summary shortcutting of normal legal procedures might lead to serious injustices. Not all of the EU’s judicial systems (to put it mildly) rest on the same ideas of justice. But even those most worried about the dangers of this system could scarcely have imagined a case like that involving the extradition to Greece of a 20-year old British student, Andrew Symeou.

In 2007, Mr Symeou, from Enfield, was on holiday in the Greek island of Zakynthos. One evening, he paid a short visit to a nightclub. A couple of days later, he returned happily to England. Two days after that, however, two friends who had remained on the island were arrested by the police and aggressively questioned for eight hours about an incident that had taken place in the club on the evening of Mr Symeou’s visit.

Another young Englishman had allegedly been punched off the stage, sustaining serious head injuries from which he died in hospital. The police had, for some reason never quite clear, decided to fix their suspicions on Mr Symeou. His friends, by their own account, were beaten and threatened by the police until they signed statements implicating Mr Symeou. As soon as they were released, they protested about their treatment to the British consul, wholly retracting the statements which they claimed to have signed under duress. Read full article…