“… provide your opinion and statement on whether extradition of the named person would requested if he is arrested in a foreign country and placed in extradition detention.”
“… The positive opinion of the Ministry of Justice is a prerequisite for the eventual issuance of an international notice of the named defendant, that is, for the submission of a request by NCB Interpol Zagreb to the NCB Interpol Secretariat in Lyon for the issuance of an international notice for the named defendant. Considering a significant passage of time, and under Article 40 paragraph 1 of the law on International Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters … the Minister of Justice submits a request for extradition at the request of the domestic judicial authority and the red international notice is a request for temporary arrest. By referring to our reference and case number, please state urgently whether you require the issuance the international notice against the defendant Predrag Stojcevic.”
“Regarding the international search for the person in question, we inform you that we have received notification from Interpol Manchester, Great Britain stating that the person in question resides in Great Britain and that the competent judicial authorities of that country request the delivery of an arrest warrant, with an English translation.”
“Referring to your repeated question asking us to tell you why Croatian authorities decided not to issue a European Arrest Warrant after that option became available to them based on accession to the European Union in 2013, I can inform you that an attempt was made to forward the criminal case against the accused Predrag Stojcevic and other accused persons to further trial in the Republic of Serbia, but seeing as the Republic of Serbia did not accept the criminal proceedings, the County Court in Osijek issued the European Arrest Warrant.”
“21. I turn to the issue of time itself and the specific issue that cases of this kind invariably take a considerable time to manifest themselves notwithstanding alterations which may occur in the lives of the suspects. Examples of such cases are given by the JA and including Nazi crimes which still occur; prosecutions arising out of the Khymer Rouge experience in Cambodia are but examples. Upon the basis that time itself was to bar such prosecutions; they then they would not have taken place. 22. Perhaps the biggest single difficulty I have had in a determination of this case is represented by the clear issue as to why progress has not been made earlier. I take this to represent the main point taken by the RP under this head. It seems to me that I must factor the political situation that prevailed in former Yugoslavia in the years that followed these allegations. I naturally accept that this cannot be the responsibility of the RP who is entitled to take the point in opposition to the application. However there is no doubt that it is a reality which this court must bear in mind. 23. In strict factual terms these offences were reported in February 2005 and the investigation concluded in September 2007 with a red notice being posted the following year. Again, and is common in cases of this kind it was not until 2022 that the whereabouts of RP was discovered. I can find on the facts of this case no culpable delay on the part of the JA which could predicated a basis to cause this application to fail, the length of time from the commission of the offences notwithstanding.”
“Unjust’ I regard as directed primarily to the risk of prejudice to the accused in the conduct of the trial itself, ‘oppressive’ as directed to hardship to the accused resulting from changes in his circumstances that have occurred during the period to be taken into consideration; but there is room for overlapping, and between them they would cover all cases where to return him would not be fair. Delay in the commencement or conduct of extradition proceedings which is brought about by the accused himself by fleeing the country, concealing his whereabouts or evading arrest cannot, in my view, be relied upon as a ground for holding it to be either unjust or oppressive to return him. Any difficulties that he may encounter in the conduct of his defence in consequence of the delay due to such causes are of his own choice and making. Save in the most exceptional circumstances it would be neither unjust nor oppressive that he should be required to accept them. “As respects delay which is not brought about by the acts of the accused himself, however, the question of where responsibility lies for the delay is not generally relevant. What matters is not so much the cause of such delay as its effect; or, rather, the effects of those events which would not have happened before the trial of the accused if it had taken place with ordinary promptitude. So where the application for discharge under section 8(3) is based upon the 'passage of time' under paragraph (b) and not on absence of good faith under paragraph (c), the court is not normally concerned with what could be an invidious task of considering whether mere inaction of the requisitioning government or its prosecuting authorities which resulted in delay was blameworthy or otherwise.”
“I would only add this comment on section 8(3)(b) of the statute. It is not merely a question whether the length of the time passed would make it unjust or oppressive to return the fugitive. Regard must be had to all the circumstances. Those circumstances are not restricted to circumstances from which the passage of time resulted. They include circumstances taking place during the passage of time which may (as I think here) give to the particular passage of time a quality or significance leading to a conclusion that return would be unjust or oppressive." 5. In Gomes v Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago[2009] UKHL 21 ;[2009] 1 WLR 1038 , the House of Lords equated “unjust” as used in section 82 of the 2003 Act as extending only to a situation where the passage of time had rendered a fair trial impossible. Several authorities have considered the scope of what is "oppressive" for this purpose. One theme common to these judgments is that oppression is not synonymous with simple hardship. For example, delay without more will, in most instances, not justify a conclusion that surrender will be oppressive (see per Collins J in Kila (Parfait) v Governor of HMP Brixton[2004] EWHC 2824 (Admin) at[18] ). There must be something more than mere delay. What the “something more” may be is not prescribed; whether it is present is a matter of evaluation based on the circumstances of the case in hand. While the category of matters which either alone or in combination may demonstrate that surrender would be oppressive is not closed, it is important to have well in mind that the standard required is demanding. That is the natural consequence of the statutory language. The conclusion that it would be oppressive to surrender a person when no other barrier to extradition is present will be a conclusion that will rarely be justified.” “Unjust’ I regard as directed primarily to the risk of prejudice to the accused in the conduct of the trial itself, ‘oppressive’ as directed to hardship to the accused resulting from changes in his circumstances that have occurred during the period to be taken into consideration; but there is room for overlapping, and between them they would cover all cases where to return him would not be fair. Delay in the commencement or conduct of extradition proceedings which is brought about by the accused himself by fleeing the country, concealing his whereabouts or evading arrest cannot, in my view, be relied upon as a ground for holding it to be either unjust or oppressive to return him. Any difficulties that he may encounter in the conduct of his defence in consequence of the delay due to such causes are of his own choice and making. Save in the most exceptional circumstances it would be neither unjust nor oppressive that he should be required to accept them. “As respects delay which is not brought about by the acts of the accused himself, however, the question of where responsibility lies for the delay is not generally relevant. What matters is not so much the cause of such delay as its effect; or, rather, the effects of those events which would not have happened before the trial of the accused if it had taken place with ordinary promptitude. So where the application for discharge under section 8(3) is based upon the 'passage of time' under paragraph (b) and not on absence of good faith under paragraph (c), the court is not normally concerned with what could be an invidious task of considering whether mere inaction of the requisitioning government or its prosecuting authorities which resulted in delay was blameworthy or otherwise.”
“31. The other main question discussed at some length during the argument is what approach should be adopted to the concepts of injustice and oppression within the meaning of section 82 . This is, of course, touched on in the first sentence of Diplock para 1. And, so far as concerns oppression, it is worth noting too Lord Diplock's statement in Kakis v Government of the Republic of Cyprus[1978] 1 WLR 779 , 784 that: “the gravity of the offence is relevant to whether changes in the circumstances of the accused which have occurred during the relevant period are such as would render his return to stand his trial oppressive …”
“The UK is my home; they have given me everything. My whole life is here and has been for almost a quarter of a century. It has given my children and me the opportunity to build a future.”
“14. I was informed at the commencement of the hearing that the RP had endeavoured to obtain expert evidence in order to support this aspect of this case. In the event this has not proved possible although RP has not formally abandoned or withdrawn this head of challenge. 15. Whilst I understand this approach the burden of proving the point remains on the RP has I have already identified and without such evidence in the way the law in its present form requires, I have no option other than to dismiss the challenge. ”
“41 … the CPT has never considered that its cell-size standards should be regarded as absolute. In other words, it does not automatically hold the view that a minor deviation from its minimum standards may in itself be considered as amounting to inhuman degrading of the prisoner(s) concerned, as long as other, alleviating, factors can be found, such as, in particular, the fact that inmates are able to spend a considerable amount of time each day outside their cells engaged in purposeful activities … The preventive approach of the CPT means that its aims to prevent situations that may result in violations ofarticle 3 of ECHR arising. By not guaranteeing 4m 2 of living space per person in multiple occupancy cells, the Croatian authorities are on the cusp of subjecting prisoners to conditions which may be considered as inhuman or degrading. For this reason, the CPT recommends that the minimum standard of 4m 2 of living space per person be complied with. In this respect, the situation observed in Zagreb Prison, where remand prisoners may be detained from months on end, confined to their cells with less than 4m 2 of living space, with no communal facilities and no purposeful regime expect for 2 hours of outdoor exercise, raises clear issues underarticle 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights . ”