7 posts tagged “andrew symeou”

Wales-on-line

Wales on-line seems to be almost the only media outlet reporting on this landmark case. It says:

Two High Court justices yesterday threw out an appeal by 20-year-old Andrew Symeou of North London against the proposed extradition. ...

Jonathan’s dad, 58-year-old service engineer Denzil Hiles, said: “We are very pleased, it’s been going on for so long.

“But it is only another tick in the box. He will appeal to the House of Lords and to the human rights people as well now.

“I want him to go back to Greece to face the court there.

and

Mr Symeou’s QC, Edward Fitzgerald, yesterday argued the case was “tainted” because Greek police had beaten up witnesses and fabricated evidence.

But Lord Justice Laws and Mr Justice Ouseley, said yesterday there was no reason for supposing the Greek courts would not deal fairly with problems raised by the case, including accusations that statements had been obtained by manipulation.

They said in a joint written judgement there was “no sound evidence” Mr Symeou’s human rights would be breached.

Fair Trials International said: “Today’s decision is a huge blow and we hope it will be overturned on appeal.”

Sabina Frediani, Liberty campaigns coordinator, said: “This alarming case highlights the dangers of summary extradition.

In a similar vein, The Daily Telegraph reporter, Alasdair Palmer, said in an article on 20 Mar 2009  "You can forget about getting British justice":

our courts will be compelled to order the extradition of British citizens to any EU country that wants them. The state that wants to extradite a Briton will simply have to sign a form which says that it told the Briton of his trial, and gave him some form of legal representation.

Such an assurance will, in many cases, be worthless – at least without independent investigation and verification.

Bulgaria, for example, is the only country in the EU that claims to have implemented "99 per cent of EU regulations". In fact, even the EU recognises that almost none of its regulations is complied with in Bulgaria. That country is also universally recognised as being totally corrupt, with the police and judiciary being particularly rotten.

The EU enthusiasts, however, simply pretend that "variations in the standards of justice" do not exist. So once the forms have been received by the British government, that will be that – you will have to be packed off to serve the sentence imposed on you by a Bulgarian court, at a trial at which you were not present, and may not even have been told about. And it doesn't matter what the offence is: it could be a traffic misdemeanour, it could be misuse of your credit card, or it could be murder.

Our Government has not just enthusiastically endorsed the new regulations: it has sponsored the legislation, passed by a huge majority in the EU Parliament last September. Why? No one seems to know.

The Ministry of Justice has said the change will "help our citizens", but I cannot see how it will help anyone to lose any protection that the British government might have been able to provide against the injustices perpetrated by foreign courts. That, however, is the only "benefit" that this new regulation will deliver.

Do not be fooled by Labour's weasel words. This is about showing the EU bureaucrats that we are committed to "ever-closer integration" – and if that means giving up our ability to protect British citizens from injustice, then that's just fine by our Government.

See also The BBC's "Student loses extradition battle"

No-freedom-ahead

From The Facebook Group, STOP the Extradition of Andrew Symeou

'Fair Trials International' have taken on Andrew's case, their mission is to work for fair trials based on international standards of justice and defend the rights of those facing charges in a country other than their own.

They have recently updated their website which explains Andrew's case and verifies evidence (and lack of) within the case file. It outlines the facts and their concerns about the case, in particular criticising the way in which the Zante Police have investigated.

The High court hearing is on the 12th March.

Private Eye

Over the last ten or so years, our freedoms have been dying tiny cut by tiny cut. Few seem to understand the protection given by Trial by Jury, the Writ of Habeas Corpus and the independence of our Judiciary. We seem to be moving slowly to a form of autocratic government, but there are heartening signs. The defeat of the Westminster Government's bill whereby it attempted to introduce 42 day detention without charge and the considerable concern over the use of anti-terrorism legislation to freeze the accounts of Icelandic banks in the UK were such signs. The introduction of the European Arrest Warrant in 2003 went unnoticed by most people. Of course it was only going to be used against terrorist subjects, but in time old fashion, it became a useful tool for other means. Even here there are signs of hope.

The attempted extradition of Andrew Symeou grinds ever onwards, but the publicity surrounding this case is beginning to alert some people to the amazing losses of freedom associated with the European Arrest Warrant (EAW). Symeou's Member of Parliament is beginning to take an interest as are some of the TV media because, at long last, they are beginning to understand some of the implications. As Private Eye puts it, in its latest issue (No. 1223 Nov 14th 2008):

Lawyers for the Bournemouth University Student fear he will not get a fair trial in Greece, claiming that seriously flawed and contradictory evidence against him has been manipulated or fabricated by police.

Symeou is accused of striking 18-year-old Jonathan Hiles with such force that he fell off a nightclub stage, suffering fatal injuries. The student denies ever punching anyone in his life, and certainly not Mr Hiles; and says he only learned about the incident after he had returned at the end of his 18-30 holiday.

The evidence against Andrew Symeou is based on statements from two of his friends obtained:

by Greek police ... after they had been detained for eight hours and verbally assaulted. The statements were in Greek and the teenagers had no idea what they were signing. The moment they were released, the two boys had complained to British consular officials and their concerns were supported by a Club 18-30 rep. ...

back in England the two boys gave markedly different statements to the Welsh police, for the Coroner's inquest. Furthermore ...

CCTV footage and evidence from the nightclub and from the other bars and clubs Symeou visited that night has been lost. His lawyers argue it would prove beyond doubt that he was not – and he and his friend maintain – even at the club at the time.

And our “justice” system said:

However the judge said these were matters for the trial and not for him.

Andrew Symeou's lawyers said:

...Symeou had not been summoned, no evidence had been given against him, he had never been interviewed by Greek or British police and no explanation had been given to him before the warrant was issued – 10 months after the event.

Welcome to your new police state!

More on the European Arrest Warrant

From The Europa web site:

European arrest warrant replaces extradition between EU Member States

Note:

1. that the person only has to be accused, not charged

2. that the EAW has replaced our well tried and tested extradition procedures where the UK extradition judge was required to ensure that there was a prima facie case prior to extradition

3. that detention without trial for 24 hours 48 hours 28 days is unheard of in almost all EU states as legislation is centrally controlled. Detention for 18 months without charge is far from unusual.

4. That we do not share the same highly demanding conception of the rule of law. As Baroness Helena Kennedy said in her 2004 book “Just Law”

The first mistake is a failure to see that law is cultural. It does not come out of nowhere and law's genesis explains the way in which checks and balances develop and the ways in which consent is secured. Consent is essential to effective legal systems.

Unlike the rest of Europe, which has what is called the 'civil law' system with codified laws and a career judiciary, we have a common law system. In the Middle Ages most European societies rediscovered Roman law and, having reworked it, they received it as the basis of their national systems. The English held out and through the creation of the Empire exported the Anglo-Saxon-based common law to all the English-speaking colonies.

The common law therefore became the basis of the legal systems in the US and Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Nigeria and other parts of Africa and remains so. However, as new democracies have emerged around the world and sought to adopt a Western model they have most frequently replicated civil law systems because they are easier to take off the shelf. Their basic rules take the form of codes - huge statutes which set out the laws in detail, number by number, along with the central concepts and doctrines. For the most part the judges have little or no power to add to or subtract from the law, which is entirely contained in the codes. Their function is to interpret these rules.
The common law on the other hand was essentially created by judges as they decided actual cases. Judges in the higher courts dealt with appeals from lower courts and, in pursuit of a real rather than formal justice, took account of the experience of real litigants and real situations. One of the reasons why contemporary markets thrive in common-law-based nations is because Napoleonic, codified systems entrench bureaucracy. The dead hand of the state is heavier where there is little legal flexibility. The discretion vested in judges provides just enough 'give' to prevent rigidity. Even today, when large parts of the law are created by statutes passed in parliament, the judges have a significant role in developing the law. While our judges are drawn from the ranks of practising lawyers with everyday experience of representing clients, judges in the civil law system are civil servants. judging is a career from the start and the training of judges is separate from that of lawyers.

The civil system is an inquisitorial system, whereas our system is adversarial. In the UK's new environment of consensus politics, emotional literacy and victimhood, doing battle in the courts is considered by many to be outmoded. The criticism is that the system is too adversarial: there should be no opposing sides in the pursuit of truth. Yet the Socratic method of debate, seeking to reach truth through testing of a position, is rigorous and effective.

Andrew Symeou

At Westminster Magistrate's Court, today, The Greek application for Andrew Symeou to be extradited has been postponed until 30th October. Read more on the BBC Website, and note comments such as:

Giving evidence, Mr Symeou's friend Charles Klitou, 19, from north London, said he was physically and verbally intimidated during an eight-hour interrogation.

He said: "I got hit by the big guy (an officer) with a fist quite hard.

"The big guy left the room and came back with a black police bat and was tapping it in his hand. I couldn't think, I was just sitting there waiting to be hit."

Mr Klitou said he was scared and so agreed to sign a statement handwritten in Greek identifying his friend.[my emphasis]

He said his jaw was swollen and sore after being hit by the officer, although an X-ray taken in the UK showed no damage, the court was told.

Another friend, Chris Kyriacou, 20, said he was punched 10 times by Greek police.

'No jurisdiction'

He said: "He (an officer) grabbed my throat and just squeezed and I felt like I couldn't breathe."

Mr Kyriacou told the court that he was also asked to sign a handwritten statement [my emphasis again] implicating his friend.

and our "puppet government", as directed by the EU, has recently made it even easier for EU Arrest Warrants to be enacted.

More here - UKIP supports Andrew
and here - Justice Andrew Symeou
and here - Nigel Farage highlights the plight of Andrew Symeou
and here - background to the case at The Telegraph.co.uk

Private Eye

In the current issue of Private Eye the case of Andrew Symeou is discussed. The Eye has seen the evidence assembled against him by the Greek police, which it describes as "flawed, contradictory and in places ludicrous."

If Private Eye is correct in its assessment of the evidence, then it shows the Greek authorities in an embarrassingly poor light. What is clear is that it is highly likely that neither the family of Jonny Hiles nor Andrew Symeou will see justice at the hands of the Greek authorities. This is exactly why we used to have extradition procedures so that British citizens were not extradited to countries whose system of law was seen as being very different to ours and whose idea of justice fell far short of our ideals, until the facts were examined in an English court.

From the Crown Prosecution Service web site
-------------
“Definition
Extradition is the formal procedure for returning persons located in one country to another country for the purpose of criminal prosecution, to be sentenced for offences for which they have been convicted or for the carrying out of a sentence which has already been imposed.”

Information (accused persons) The warrant must contain:
Particulars of identity;
Details of any other warrant issued in the requesting territory for that person;
Particulars of the facts;
Particulars of the relevant foreign law under which the conduct is alleged to constitute an offence;
Details of any sentence which may be imposed in the event of conviction.
Role of CPS
In Part 1 export extradition cases where the subject of the extradition proceedings has been arrested in England or Wales, CPS provides representation for the requesting judicial authority in proceedings before the English courts.
...
All export extradition cases are dealt with at first instance in City of Westminster Magistrates' Court by Special Crime Division of CPS HQ.
-----------------
More at http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal...

Of prime importance is that the evidence is presented in a Magistrates Court by specialists. Only after this, can the extradition proceed or be denied. The European Arrest Warrant is intended to support " the principle of mutual recognition the cornerstone of a true European law-enforcement area."  (See previous post) How can we have a "true European law-enforcement area" when our system of law and that of much of continental Europe are based on contradicting principles. In simple terms, our system is based on the freedom of the individual and the continental system based on supporting the state.

For the time being, an individual who is served with a European Arrest Warrant, has the right to ask for a judicial hearing, which Andrew has asked for. He appears in court again on 30th September.

There is more on the Private Eye article at "Just and Ordinary Englishman"

http://www.justice-for-symeou.com/

John Marshall and George Wythe

While the media make a big fuss about the 42 days detention without charge, yet another individual joins the list of those who can be held for 18 months without charge and this with little fuss, except, of course, by him. So another of those small changes take place as we become absorbed by the European Union government with few taking any notice, understanding the change or even caring.

Who will be next? If you are taking a holiday in mainland Europe, this summer, it just might be you, so be warned.

Now to the case of Andrew Symeou. Last July, Jonathon Hiles, 18, of Cardiff, died after he suffered head injuries in a club on the Greek island of Zakynthos.

According to The BBC:

Mr Symeou, a student at Bournemouth University, was arrested on June 26 at his home, after a European arrest warrant was issued by Greek authorities. His passport was also seized by police.

During the short hearing John Jones, for Mr Symeou, said Greek police had obtained witness statements using force and he believed Symeou could not expect fair treatment if he was extradited.

Mr Symeou's solicitor, John Tipple, said after the hearing: "For justice to be done it needs to be done here."

Until today, Denzil Hiles, 58, of Cardiff, Jonathon's father, has kept quiet about the case, but has felt pressured to speak out as he struggles with the media coverage surrounding the man accused of his son's manslaughter and his fight to avoid facing a trial in Greece. This has put his family and Jonathon's girlfriend under immense stress and some family members have criticised him for not speaking out. According to David James of The South Wales Echo:

It is being treated as a test case about new EU arrest warrants, which allow suspects in serious crimes to be extradited to the country where they are alleged to have committed the crime, without evidence being presented first in their home state.

According to the European Commission this has been “made possible by a high level of mutual trust and cooperation between countries who share the same highly-demanding conception of the rule of law”. ...

Mr Hiles said: “If Andrew doesn’t go to Greece, he doesn’t get a trial and Jonathan doesn’t get justice. They are making an issue that isn’t there. They are making this into a trial by media about whether he goes back but it’s got nothing to do with that.

“We are all part of the EU. We abide by the same kinds of rules and regulations. If Greece’s record of human rights is so terrible, why is it part of the EU?

It is here that Mr Hiles completely misses the point. We do NOT abide by the same rules, or didn't until recently and few have noticed the change. In the UK, we used to have that subtle distinction between the European Napoleonic system of justice where you are presumed guilty until proven innocent, and the UK Common Law system where you are presumed innocent until proven guilty and therefore could not be held for more than 72 hours, 28 days, 42 days, without charge.

But like the 10p tax debacle, we probably wont notice or care until it affects us personally. remember this when you are locked up in a mainland European prison for 18months, without charge, without any redress or appeal. Like many Brits, you might just be released at the end, again without charge or any comeback. Welcome to your new friendly E.U. Goverment!

(Symeou is due back in the City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court on August 12 to face an extradition hearing.)

http://www.justice-for-symeou.com/