– My situation at the moment is that I am quite locked inside the Kingdom of Norway. I do not have the opportunity to get anywhere, as long as I have this hanging over me, the middle-aged man says to news. He was reported for a rape in Alicante, Spain at the end of September 2016. He was subsequently wanted by Spanish police. The man denies having done so, and says time sheets and bank statements document that he was not in Spain at the time stated in the review. – It is very scary that you can be accused of something like that, when you have not even been there. The timesheets should show that the man was at work until late at night in Norway the day before the alleged rape. The next day he was at work from early in the morning, he has explained in court. The man’s defender Brynjar Meling says there were no planes that could transport the man to and from Spain when the alleged rape allegedly took place. The driving time from the place the man lives to the scene is around 40 hours – each way. – He had no practical or actual opportunity at all to get from Norway to Spain at that time, Meling says. Receives support from Norwegian police Trønderen is one of the first to be handed over on the basis of the European Arrest Warrant Act which came into force in November 2019. Initially, the district court ruled that the man could be handed over, because the request from Spain met the criteria in the EU agreement . Subsequently, the Trøndelag public prosecutor’s office intervened and started a separate investigation of the case. They could do this because both parties in the case are Norwegian. It ended with the case being dropped. Police attorney Ole Andreas Aftret confirms that the timesheets from the man’s workplace were emphasized. Police attorney Ole Andreas Aftret in a joint unit for prosecution in Trøndelag police district. Photo: Morten Andersen / news – I do not have an overview of whether the Spanish authorities have other information. But based on the evidence that the Norwegian police have, we assume what the accused explains, namely that he was not in Spain when the rape took place, says Aftret. The agreement states that a special legal basis is required for a European surrender request not to be granted. Despite the closure, the European arrest warrant from Spain stands. news has tried to get in touch with Spanish police and the judge who signed the arrest warrant against the man, without success. The man from Trøndelag says the case has been an enormous burden. When he returned to Spain in the autumn of 2016, he was arrested, deprived of his passport and placed in custody. After his release, he drove to Norway, without a passport. – I can not go on a holiday trip or shopping trip abroad as long as I have such a court request from foreign authorities hanging over me. Then I can be arrested and maybe sent to the so-called “crime scene”. The new arrest warrant law on 1 November 2019, an agreement on arrest warrants between Norway and the EU entered into force. Prior to this, Norway did not extradite its own nationals to countries other than the Nordic countries. In short, the agreement means that the member states must arrest and transfer suspects or convicts to the country that has issued an arrest warrant, so that they can be brought before the court or serve a sentence there. In order for this to happen quickly, short deadlines have been set for making a decision and carrying out the handover. It is up to the prosecuting authority to decide whether or not to comply with an arrest warrant. The agreement means that the countries recognize each other’s legal system as their own. Therefore, neither the prosecution nor the court should try the concrete evidence in the case. A court shall only assess whether the conditions for surrender have been met. As early as June 2006, Norway entered into a parallel agreement with the EU on the extradition of offenders, but it took 13 years before it entered into force. There is no national overview of the number of cases in which Norwegian citizens have been handed over pursuant to the Arrest Warrant Act. Source: The Government / news – Can not understand that the Storting has passed such a law In principle, Norwegian courts should not consider the evidence on which a request for surrender is based through the European Arrest Warrant. This is to ensure efficient handover between EU countries. The prosecuting authority shall only assess whether the conditions for extradition have been met; that is, whether the petition is in line with the criteria in the agreement. Lawyer Brynjar Meling says it is a burden for the client to have the case hanging over him. Photo: Terje Pedersen / NTB Meling describes the decision to intervene in the Spanish investigation as “awake” and “the only sensible thing” to do. At the same time, he asks the police and Norwegian authorities to do more to get the international search deleted. – They can not just shrug their shoulders and leave this to the accused, Meling says. He is also very critical of the fact that Norwegian politicians have passed the Arrest Warrant Act, which makes it possible to extradite Norwegian citizens, based only on a suspicion. Meling says one can imagine a case where the evidence situation was the same, without both parties in the case being Norwegian. In that case, the Norwegian police would not have had the opportunity to investigate on their own grounds. This had meant that they had been obliged to extradite a Norwegian citizen who could prove that he had not committed the criminal act. – What do you think about it? – I can not understand that the Storting has passed such a law. I believe, with all due respect to the politicians in the Storting, that they are not aware of the interventions it has made in Norway’s sovereignty to accept a convention that makes it possible to extradite citizens, on whom one does not have the opportunity to test the basis of suspicion. Significant risk news has previously mentioned several cases where Norwegian citizens feel unfairly treated as a result of the European arrest warrant agreement. news has also been in contact with several Norwegian justice politicians, who mainly believe that the advantages of the agreement outweigh the disadvantages. The Norwegian Institute for Human Rights works with politicians and government officials to ensure that the human rights of Norwegian citizens are safeguarded. Senior Adviser Thomas Berge at the Norwegian Institute for Human Rights. Photo: Martin Zondag / news Senior adviser Thomas Berge says the arrest warrant agreement entails a “significant risk” of human rights violations. He justifies this with the fact that several countries in Europe have a significant weakness associated with their legal systems. Berge believes the agreement is a dilemma for Norwegian politicians. – On the one hand, the agreement is important for ensuring effective fight against crime. On the other hand, there are significant ethical concerns in extraditing Norwegian citizens, when there is such a great risk that they will not have their human rights safeguarded. – It is also a lesson for the future that one does not know how the development in Europe will be. We must be very concerned about handing over our own citizens to such a type of handover agreement, because it is not a given that development is going in the right direction. Do what we can The public prosecutor in Trøndelag has sent two court requests to the Spanish authorities to take over the case, without receiving a response. A third is on its way. – We have official communication channels from the prosecuting authority to the prosecuting authority and it is court requests that are the form of communication. So the starting point here is at least in my view that we do what we can, and then we understand that it is frustrating not to get any clarification on the matter.
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Norwegian police believe he was in Norway – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
