Asad Al-jaban v Court of First Instance in Antwerp (Belgium)

Legally adequate particulars are required for an accusation European arrest warrant to be valid. Further Information may cure omissions, but cannot cure a wholesale failure in the warrant. The requesting judicial authority bears the burden of establishing adequate particulars to the criminal standard, and each offence must be particularised. The required detail is assessed contextually. Full and exhaustive particularisation is unnecessary, and the court must balance the requested person’s ability to understand the allegations and invoke extradition safeguards against the simplified nature of extradition proceedings. Precise dates may adequately identify occasions of offending, and the warrant need not take the form of an indictment.

The appellant challenged the order for his extradition to Belgium, made by District Judge Rimmer on 13 July 2021. He argued that the European arrest warrant and Further Information failed to particularise the alleged people-smuggling offences, including the maximum sentence, the involvement of minors, the places and number of offences, and the occasions of alleged offending.

The renewed application followed the Divisional Court’s judgment in [2022] EWHC 1906 (Admin). The section 10 dual-criminality ground was accepted to be parasitic on the section 2 challenge. The central issue was whether the warrant and Further Information gave legally adequate particulars.

1. Application refused. The renewed application for permission to appeal had no realistic prospect of success.
2. Under section 2(4)(c) and (d) of the Extradition Act 2003, read compatibly with Article 8(1)(e) and (f) of the Framework Decision, the warrant had to identify the alleged conduct, time and place, applicable law, degree of participation and possible sentence. The requesting authority bore the burden of proving adequate particulars to the criminal standard, and each offence required adequate particularisation.
3. The purposes of particularisation were to enable the requested person to understand the substance of the allegations and to invoke extradition safeguards, including dual criminality and specialty. Those purposes had to be balanced against the simplified nature of extradition and mutual trust. Full and exhaustive detail was unnecessary; the appropriate level depended on the circumstances.
4. Read as a whole, the warrant identified the alleged species of offending, the gang’s method, the appellant’s alleged role, the relevant locations and a series of dates. It therefore did not disclose a wholesale failure. Further Information also clarified that the appellant was wanted for three offences.
5. The reference to a sentence of 15 to 20 years was not an ambiguous range. The explanation in Killoran established that 20 years was the maximum, reduced to 15 years where legally prescribed features applied. The same explanation applied to this warrant.
6. It was unnecessary at the extradition stage to identify which particular occasions involved minors. Whether minors were involved was a matter for evidence at trial. Nor was it necessary to specify occasions by an indictment-style formulation. The degree of particularity required for occasions was contextual, and the specific dates supplied here were legally adequate and enabled the appellant to invoke specialty protection.
7. The alleged references to conduct after persons had arrived in the United Kingdom did not create a realistic extradition bar or safeguard issue. The section 10 ground consequently disclosed no arguable independent basis.

The application for permission to appeal was refused.

• Divisional Court: judgment given in [2022] EWHC 1906 (Admin), leading to the renewed application.
• High Court (Administrative Court): the renewed application for permission to appeal was refused.