The European Arrest Warrant an ‘accident waiting to happen’ for expats like WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange
The arrest of expat WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for alleged sex offences has highlighted aspects of the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) agreement which enable all EU member states to extradite defendants without producing any evidence in support of the charge.
Born in Queensland, Australia, Mr Assange is very much an expat. Having moved 37 times by the time he was 14, and many more times subsequently, he is almost a global citizen – a condition occasionally favoured by wealthy expats who seek to avoid paying tax in any particular jurisdiction.
Tax-dodging expats often discover, however, the arm of the taxman is longer and more flexible than they have anticipated. So too the arm of the law, which has been given added articulation and extension, at least as far as European expats are concerned, by the EAW.
Julian Assange, as he was was living in London on a six month visa at the time of his arrest on Tuesday, was therefore subject to the EAW for his alleged crime in Sweden regardless of his country of birth or official country of domicile.
What this meant in practice was that district judge Howard Riddle, who presided over Tuesday’s hearing at City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court had no choice but to err on the side of caution and remand Mr Assange in custody pending his extradition, regardless of the fact that he was not presented wth sufficient evidence to assess the strength of the case against Mr Assange.
Had Mr Assange been arrested on the same charges prior to the EAW’s enactment in 2003, a UK magistrates court would have had the right to consider if the prima facie evidence against Mr Assange justified his extradition on the accusation of sexual offences.
According to lawyer Rodney Hylton-Potts of Hylton-Potts Legal Consultants Ltd, Mr Assange’s arrest under the EAW has been an accident waiting to happen. He said: “There is no control now, no demand for evidence. People are being extradited to face trial in foreign countries where there is often no legal aid and where they can’t speak the language. And on what basis?
“I have no doubt Mr Assange will be extradited to Sweden,” he continued. “He will appeal but I suspect it will be turned down.
“The only defence against the extradition is that the charge is politically motivated. But how do you prove that?”
One of the charges against Mr Assange is that he had unprotected sex with a woman, identified only as Miss A, when she insisted he use a condom. Another is that he had unprotected sex with another woman, Miss W, while she was asleep.
Rumours that the charges are politically motivated in a bid to put a stop to Mr Assange and his website’s unprecedented release of classified US diplomatic files gathered pace on Tuesday evening when Mike Mukasey, attorney general under President George Bush, told the BBC’s Newsnight programme: “When one is accused of a very serious crime it’s common to hold him in respect of a lesser crime … while you assemble evidence of a second crime.”
Supporters of Mr Assange in Australia have written an open letter to the Australian prime minister urging her to “provide assistance and advocacy to Mr Assange and do everything in your power to ensure that any legal proceedings taken against him comply fully with the principles of law and procedural fairness.”
Mr Assange’s lawyer Mark Stephens has compared his client’s case to that of Gary McKinnon, the Scottish systems administrator accused of hacking into 97 United States military and NASA computers and currently awaiting extradition to the U.S:
“This is a Gary McKinnon mark two,” he told Telegraph Expat, “and as we have seen with him, these things can drag on for a long time.”