Fears over foreign criminals after Brexit

EU-27 diplomats are told UK could not be part of European Arrest Warrant to streamline suspect swaps

Foreign criminals could find it easier to evade British justice after the European Commission warned that the UK could not remain part of the European Arrest Warrant after Brexit. The Commission published slides that revealed that Britain would not be able to stay part of the system which streamlines extraditions within the EU. The slides say that in the absence of a new agreement, Britain would fall back on to 1957 extradition rules agreed in the Council of Europe, which is not an EU body.

‘We want to agree a deep and special partnership ... to fight crime and terrorism and uphold justice across Europe

FOREIGN criminals could find it easier to evade British justice after the European Commission warned that the UK could not remain part of the European Arrest Warrant after Brexit.

The commission last night published slides, shown to EU-27 diplomats, that revealed that Britain would not be able to stay part of the system which streamlines extraditions among EU member states.

The scheme – the brainchild of Jack Straw, the then Home Secretary – allows EU countries to issue warrants requesting another member state to surrender a suspect within 90 days.

In 2005, Hussein Osman, one of the terrorists behind the failed July 21 London attacks, was arrested in Italy and extradited in under a week.

From 2010 to 2017, the UK – a net exporter of criminals – has extradited 6,514 suspects to other EU countries and brought 800 back from the EU.

The slides are “without prejudice” to the Brexit negotiations over the future UK-EU relationship, but illustrate the scale of the task faced by Theresa May and David Davis in building close crossborder cooperation on crime and counter-terrorism after Brexit.

The commission slides say that in the absence of a new extradition agreement, Britain would fall back on 1957 extradition rules agreed in the Council of Europe, which is not an EU body.

Eighteen EU member states, including France, Germany, Bulgaria, Poland, Sweden, Denmark and others, have rules that prevent them from extraditing their own nationals. While that ban does not apply under the European Arrest Warrant (EAW), it would to the 1957 agreement.

That would mean that, for example, if a French person committed a crime in Britain and fled to France, it would be impossible to extradite them unless new separate arrangement was made. While the EU extradition scheme is handled by judges rather than through diplomatic channels and has clear time restrictions, the Council of Europe agreement would rely on political cooperation and has no time limit on extradition requests. This would make the process much more lengthy and cumbersome. A Council of Europe extradition can also fall victim to some EU countries’ laws that only allow extraditions if a crime is considered a crime in their nation.

Last year the Centre for European Reform think-tank warned that it would be “almost impossible” for Britain to negotiate as good an arrangement as the EAW after Brexit.

The slides suggested replacement agreements could be based on the USEU agreement, which relies largely on bilateral deals with individual countries. Alternatively, the new arrangement could be modelled on a system for Norway and Iceland, which has not yet entered into force. That option significantly reduces grounds for refusal, introduces deadlines and exceptions for double criminality.

However, it does allow countries to refuse to surrender their nationals and restrict extradition if they are judged to be politically motivated.

Given that any deal is likely to be reciprocal, the preliminary EU stance could also make it more difficult to extradite criminals from Britain.

The news will be greeted with jubilation by some Brexiteers. They have long argued that the EAW, which entered into force in 2004, infringes British sovereignty because a foreign judge can order a British citizen to face trial abroad with few controls.

A spokesman for the Department for Exiting the European Union told The Daily Telegraph: “We want to agree a deep and special partnership, taking in both economic and security cooperation to fight crime and terrorism and uphold justice across Europe. As part of the negotiations we will discuss with the EU and its member states how best to continue cooperation on a range of issues, including seeking to agree effective extradition processes.”

UK officials insisted that the slides set out precedents rather than a concrete negotiating position by the European Commission.