16 Dec Its all Greek to me!
Why the United Kingdom should not extradite its own nationals:
I recently had a very interesting insight into judicial systems of other countries when I travelled to Greece to instruct a Greek lawyer in an appeal against conviction of a British boy (AB) accused of the manslaughter of another British boy in The Strip in Zante.
The incident which caused the unfortunate death of the British man was very unusually completely caught on mobile phone video. It was very clear from the video who the two perpetrators were, and my client was not one of those men. In fact, my client could be seen, quite clearly on the video, on the other side of the road talking to someone at the time of the fight across the road.
Nevertheless, the morning after the incident, Greek Police came to his hotel and identified him as being one of the perpetrators and arrested him. He was interviewed by Police. Unlike my former Client, Andrew Symeou’s, friends he was not physically assaulted, but he was asked to sign a statement in Greek which he did. Apparently, that statement, which was never read to him or translated or explained to him, was actually his admission of involvement in the incident. He was taken to the investigation court the following morning where he was asked to take his Tee shirt off and was questioned as to what had happened to his tattoos because the person who had committed the offence had tattoos and my client did not. He was then released and was allowed to return to the United Kingdom.
AB saw the video and immediately gave over the name of the person who was involved (WL). AB’s family flew out to Zante and instructed a Greek lawyer and that lawyer was given the name of the right person. A month later AB’s mother travelled to Greece with a British lawyer (not me) and, again, met with the Public Prosecutor and gave over the name of the true assailant. She mistakenly thought that that would be the end of the matter as she had given over the correct details and it was very clearly not her son on the video.
Some three years later she received a text saying that her son’s trial was going to be starting in Greece in two days’ time. She therefore flew out to Greece and attended the court in Patras. She was asked to sit outside for most of the time and when she came in she was asked what she was doing there and she said, “Well, I’ve come to tell you that it
is not my son on the video” and they said, “Thank you very much” and then pronounced that her son was guilty and would be sentenced in his absence to ten years imprisonment. He was represented in these proceedings by the Greek lawyer even though she had not made any communication with any parties since the mother had travelled over to Greece some three years before. The mother lodged an appeal at the court immediately, returned to the United Kingdom and then contacted me.
I instructed the excellent George Pyromallis, the Greek criminal lawyer who I worked with on the Andrew Symeou and Crete Five case. I prepared all the witness statements from everyone who had been at the club that night and instructed a facial mapping expert to show that the person on the video was clearly not my client.
We made an application for his ten-year sentence to be held in abeyance to allow him to travel to Greece for his Appeal but the Greek authorities refused to allow it. We then made an application for a video link for him to give his evidence but having seen now how the Greek justice system works, I can see that that was always going to be optimistic and was nevertheless denied.
The witnesses and I and the family of AB all travelled out to Greece for the hearing. I knew it was going to be interesting when we sat at the back of court and I realised we were sat next to members of the jury, defendants in handcuffs, members of the public and the victim’s family. In Greece, the victim’s family have to instruct their own lawyer and so they had their own lawyer present. It was of some surprise that the victim’s family’s lawyer was trying to maintain the conviction against my client when it was clear from the video evidence that he was not the true perpetrator.
In Greece, the Appeal is heard by three Judges and four members of the public sitting as members of the jury. All seven sit together and have an equal vote. The witnesses were all heard in very short order. The first witness was, in fact, the victim’s wife who was not in Greece at the time of her husband’s death. I realised that the rules of evidence such as hearsay and relevancy simply went out the window. The President Judge asked her two questions, the first was, “Have the Defendant’s family offered their condolences to you?” and was obviously very disapproving when she heard that they had not and, secondly, “who had she heard had killed her husband and what did she know about what has happened?” – even though she was not even in the country at the time? It went from bad to worse; it was like being in a very disorganised and chaotic
Magistrates’ Court hearing but without the rules of law or evidence and when the client is facing ten years imprisonment. The internet did not work and everybody ended up watching the video of the incident including the Judge and jury on our lawyer’s mobile phone which was passed around between them. Even though we sat till half past six and everyone else had gone home, the case had not concluded and we had to come back again three weeks later.
We arrived back for the trial and, again, the victim’s family’s lawyer was trying to maintain the conviction of my client even though it was blatantly apparent from the video and the eye witness evidence that we called that it was not him on the video. This included the evidence of a facial mapping expert who had confirmed that there were no similarities between the person on the video and my client. Evidence was heard from the Police Officer who said that he had taken the admission of involvement by my client. The President Judge was obviously very impressed by the evidence given by the Police Officer even though it clearly could not be correct. The Police officer accepted that my client had not had the benefit of an interpreter or translator and that he believed that one of the other Police Officers in the Police Station had been able to ‘speak a bit of English’ and so he had explained to him what the confession had said.
The evidence that was called was overwhelmingly clear that it was not my client in the video. The Judges and jury went out to consider and came back and simply said, “We find him guilty.” There were no reasons given. However, they then went on to consider the actual charge and the mitigation, namely his age and the fact that my client does not have any convictions and then, in the space of a minute, commuted the ten-year sentence to a suspended sentence of three years for three years. This means that there will be no extradition proceedings and that my client can get on with his life.
It was clear that the whole thing was just a complete fudge. The Greek authorities simply could not lose face that they had got it completely wrong, that they had arrested the wrong person, that they charged the wrong person, that they convicted the wrong person and that the Police Officer clearly had not been telling the truth. However, they also clearly did not want someone who was innocent to go to prison so they commuted his sentence. The most galling thing of all of this is that the person who actually did the crime now gets away scot-free and that no one will pursue him because somebody else has been convicted for that crime.
When we have extradition cases in the United Kingdom, we talk about Human Rights and sections of the Extradition Act and go into great detail about the calling of evidence and foreign judicial systems – but we are trying to compare apples with pears. This is no comparison between our system and other countries, even those European countries such as Greece. I know that our system has a lot of problems at the moment with delays and lack of funding but what I witnessed in Greece was just not even on the same scale as the justice system we provide. It is for this reason that I think that we should not be extraditing any British Nationals to other countries to face trial and conviction. There just are not the safeguards in place that we have come to expect. Many other countries such as France and Israel do not extradite their own nationals and I really think we need to be adopting the same strategy.
Karen Todner
12.December 2024
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