International Arrest Warrants

During the past two years, two men from Cowes have been unjustly imprisoned abroad. Months have been taken out of their lives and a huge amount of time and expense have been devoted to securing their release. Both were eventually released without a stain on their character, but they and two others in my constituency are now prevented from plying their lawful trade of delivering boats to foreign countries or travelling abroad. In short, all four are prisoners in their own country. One of them told me recently how helpful the Foreign Office had been to him in 1979 when it funded his health care when he had been robbed and was ill and destitute in Togo. He said:"““I thought it was a fantastic service.””" He would not say that of this story. In 1997, the former Royal Navy vessel, HMS Cygnet, was sold by Her Majesty’s Government. The buyer, who renamed her Duanas, wanted her delivered to Morocco and recruited a crew through a reputable international agency, Crewseekers Ltd. Its website describes it as"““the original and premier yacht crew agency…We offer a wide variety of exciting crewing opportunities worldwide…Many gap-year students and people seeking a life-style change join us for travel and adventure!””" It continues:"““Crewseekers has members in over 50 countries around the glove, and since 1990 has introduced thousands of yacht owners and crew.””" Among them are John Packwood, Henry Stableford, Oliver Bennett and Colin Bocquillon from Cowes on the Isle of Wight. They were paid £40 a day to deliver the Duanas to its new owner in Morocco. In short, they did what thousands of Britons, some professional and some amateur, do every day. On arrival in port at Agadir on 11 April 1997, the Duanas and her crew were thoroughly searched, and were given the all-clear by Moroccan customs officials. The job was done and the crew flew home to England on 13 April. However, unbeknown to my four constituents, the Duanas’s new owners were members of a Colombian drug cartel. Ten weeks after she was delivered and the Cowes crew had returned home, the Colombians used the boat to smuggle 6 tonnes of cocaine in Moroccan waters. They were caught on 25 June and having given full and detailed confessions they were convicted. The miscreants consistently stated that they had no connection with any of the Cowes crew and that the drugs were brought aboard the Duanas only on the day that she sailed. The Cowes crew’s association with the Duanas was thoroughly explored by Interpol after the event and was dismissed as being wholly innocent. Seven years passed and in October 2004, John Packwood was holidaying in Spain. He was arrested under an international arrest warrant that had been issued in Morocco in 1997. Spain’s extradition treaty with Morocco, in the fashion of the European arrest warrant, does not require the applicant to demonstrate a prima facie case against the accused. I call this a no-fault treaty. Having languished in Spanish jails for 11 months, attempting unsuccessfully to challenge extradition, Mr. Packwood was finally deported to Morocco in September 2005. Once there, he spent another month on remand. Having presented a comprehensive dossier of evidence illustrating his innocence to the Moroccan authorities and with support from many public figures including Mariella Frostrup, Damien Hirst, Hugh Grant, George Clooney and, on a more mundane level, myself, he was graciously pardoned before trial by His Majesty the King of Morocco. Put thus, it sounds easy. I know that the Minister knows that it was not and I thank him for the consular support, with visits and advice, that he and his office gave at that time. However, for Mr. Packwood, as for his friends and his lawyers, uncertainty reigned. He was incarcerated for more than a year, his legal bill exceeded £80,000, and he cannot work outside the UK. Mr. Packwood’s lawyer, Jason McCue of H2O Law, feared that that needless and protracted detention might be repeated. We petitioned the Moroccan authorities, Interpol and the Minister’s Department for the outstanding international arrest warrants against all four crew to be rescinded, but our requests were unproductive. In consequence, on 16 October this year another wholly innocent Cowes resident, Henry Stableford, was arrested. Mr. Stableford had been employed at a boatyard in Fano in Italy. Following Mr. Packwood’s release last year, he assumed that the warrant was no longer active. None the less, before travelling to Italy he took the precaution of checking with the Italian authorities and was assured that there was no barrier to travel. However, when he arrived in Fano and applied for the Italian equivalent of a national insurance number, alarm bells rang, the Moroccan warrant was activated and he was arrested and kept in solitary confinement. Again, he was subject to no-fault extradition proceedings. Mr. McCue sought a diplomatic solution with Morocco and suggested that the deadline set for filing the extradition request might have passed, which would result in his client’s release on procedural grounds. Morocco’s reasons for taking this course are not known, but that is what happened. On 15 November, Mr. Stableford was finally freed by the Italians, having spent more than 30 fraught days needlessly incarcerated. That was not and still is not the end of Mr. Stableford’s ordeal. First, despite wishing to return home as soon as possible, he knew that if his passport was properly processed on leaving Italy he could be arrested again. He chose to fly via the provincial Bologna Forli airport, which has less rigorous security procedures, but even there he could have been re-arrested. Members of his family, his friends, his lawyers and I were therefore enormously relieved when he touched down at Stansted airport on 16 November. Secondly, we all agreed that neither he nor any other member of the crew could with confidence travel overseas again until the matter of the arrest warrants was cleared up. The issues on which I seek the Minister’s help are as follows. First, how does someone find out whether a warrant or an extradition treaty exists? Outstanding international arrest warrants prevent my four constituents from travelling abroad. How can any other ordinary visitor check before travelling whether such a warrant exists? How can they find out whether an extradition treaty exists between the country that they are bound for and a country that may have issued such a warrant? How can they find out whether it is a no-fault treaty? These points are not academic. Eight Britons await trial in Morocco at the moment. My constituents left their boat 10 weeks before it was used for criminal activities, yet still a warrant was issued. Anyone who hires a car or rents a hotel room could find themselves arrested in a third country in circumstances similar to those of John Packwood and Henry Stableford. In a world in which huge numbers of people each year visit countries—10 years ago that would have been impossible—this is wholly unacceptable. Neither Interpol nor the Serious Organised Crime Agency is required even to confirm that such warrants exist and Interpol seems immune to representations from hon. Members. What course of action does the Foreign Office recommend for such people, other than to stay at home? Secondly, how can a warrant be discharged? When warrants are in place, how can we prevent them from impeding people’s free movement? Neither Interpol nor Morocco responded to requests after Mr. Stableford’s arrest to find out whether it was merely administrative oversight that had left the warrants in place. What action could the Foreign Office take? They told Mr. McCue:"““We are unable to interfere in the judicial process of another country. Your request for us to raise the international arrest warrant with the Moroccan authorities would amount to interference. It is for Mr Stableford’s legal team to determine next steps.””" Mr. Stableford’s legal team, led by Mr. McCue, was assiduous, and on a previous occasion it was not paid for the work that it did. They were doing their best, but surely an intervention in that matter is not interference, when Foreign Office-recommended local lawyers stated that the issue of the arrest warrant was in no way solvable by judicial channels but was, instead, a ““political matter””. Each traveller’s dilemma is circular. If one does not know that a warrant exists, one cannot take steps to have it set aside. One is unlikely to know that a warrant exists until one is arrested under it, in which case one will almost certainly have been arrested in a third country and not enjoy easy access to British lawyers, let alone lawyers who have rights of audience in the extraditing country. To cap it all, Moroccan lawyers advised that a warrant could be rescinded only if the subject of the warrant were exonerated at full trial. Thirdly, will the Foreign Office facilitate interviews with my constituents on British soil? Apart from brief contact with Interpol in 1997, neither it, the Moroccan authorities nor the Serious Organised Crime Agency has interviewed any of my constituents anywhere about the allegations on which the warrants are based. Fourthly, will the Foreign Office defend a British citizen’s right to due process? Mr. Packwood’s rights were violated in Spain, where he was remanded despite a complete absence of prima facie evidence, but the Foreign Office failed to intervene. Failing to rescind a redundant international arrest warrant, despite repeated requests, is an equally serious abuse. The question is: when would the Foreign Office intervene? There must come a point when a judicial process is so fatally flawed that it is no longer entitled to that description and the Foreign Office has no option but to abandon its policy of non-interference. Fifthly, will the Foreign Office intervene when extradition treaties appear to be contrary to European Union law? The treaties under which my constituents were apprehended permit the extradition of Britons, but not of Spaniards or, as the case may be, of Italians. That appears to break EU law, which requires equal treatment of all EU citizens before the legal processes of individual EU countries. My friend Dan Hannan MEP, with Caroline Lucas MEP, is pursuing the matter through the European institutions to ensure that Britons are not discriminated against. Will the Minister support them and also raise those cases directly with Spain and Italy? It must be made clear to other EU countries that if it is unacceptable to extradite their citizens, it is unacceptable to extradite ours. Finally, what can be done about the conflicting roles of the Foreign Office? It has consular and diplomatic roles to fulfil. Our country has global interests and the Foreign Office has to operate at a geopolitical level, but the impression is that its duty to the many overrides its duty to the individual. I understand the need to balance them, but it is of little solace to the friends and families of people in prison. As Mariella Frostrup asked in a headline in The Observer on 19 November:"““Who would you trust to get you out of jail?””" The article began:"““Something is badly wrong with the Foreign Office when George Clooney is more likely than Margaret Beckett to have innocent Britons abroad freed.””" She said:"““If the FCO is diplomatically prevented from helping us when we are in trouble, then our Government needs to think of an alternative.””" She suggested either attaching a non-governmental organisation to an embassy, or that European Union countries work together to attach any incarcerated citizen"““to whichever EU embassy has the best local relations.””" She continued:"““An independent body could serve us better, offer independent advice and, perhaps as often as is needed, roll up its sleeves and get its hands dirty, all of which could be done in a way that is distanced from the embassies’ diplomatic role and thus not damage foreign policy.””" I hope Ministers will explore both suggestions, because until the Foreign Office either extends its consular ambitions—its services are welcome, but its support would be more welcome—or finds someone who will do so for it, innocent citizens will face potentially serious problems if they travel overseas, and my four constituents will remain prisoners in their own country.