Liverpool student's extradition hell

Nov 4 2007

ANTI-TERROR laws were used to extradite a Merseyside student to Spain – four years after police found fake 50-euro notes in a hotel room where he had stayed with friends.

Joseph Mendy spent two months in a prison cell before being told by Spanish lawyers to plead guilty, or spend the next four years locked up for a crime he insists he did not commit.

Now the 23-year-old’s MP has raised the saga in Parliament and is urging Government to tighten up the way it allows European extradition agreements.

“Exemplary” John Moores University psychology and criminology student Mr Mendy was studying in his Waterloo bedroom when police arrived to arrest him in March.

He was served with a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) in connection with allegations he and two friends had used fake 50-euro notes while on holiday in Fuertaventura four years earlier.

In 2003, UK ministers reassured human rights campaigners EAWs would only be used for serious suspected crimes like terrorism and paedophilia.

They were introduced in the UK in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks in 2001, and are designed to be difficult for another EU country to over-rule.

Mr Mendy said that he was still angry over his ordeal.

He said he had decided to plead guilty after meeting prisoners in jail who had waited two years before seeing a judge.

The student, who now lives with friends in Murat Street, and is a bar DJ, said: “I’m glad it’s over. I am angry, but at the same time I cannot afford to be stubborn. I wasn’t prepared to sit there for a year.

“The system over there is a slow process. I think it’s a bit crazy they spent all that money getting me over there and putting me in prison.

“It’s pathetic – it’s not a big crime, but I guess they got their conviction. I don’t think people should be extradited for petty stuff like this. The law wasn’t meant for that. It should be changed.”

MP Frank Dobson, who represents Mr Mendy’s parents’ constituency of Camden, in London, has now raised the issue in Parliament.

He is demanding the law be changed so that the extradition treaty only be used for the “serious” crimes former Prime Minister Tony Blair said they would be used for.

“All this has happened despite the fact that he was never in possession of any forged euro notes and had no idea that any notes were forgeries,” said Mr Dobson.

“It is exactly the sort of incident that brings European institutions into disrepute.”

The MP added: “The legislation set down by the Government listed 32 categories of crime it is intended to cover, including terrorism, trafficking in radioactive materials, sabotage, unlawful seizure of aircraft and ships, sexual exploitation of children, trafficking in drugs, trafficking in people and trafficking in weapons.

“I doubt anyone seriously believed that it was intended to cover accusations relating to the innocent possession of four forged 50-euro notes.

“Have not the Spanish police and judiciary anything better to do? Was this the best use of Britain’s Serious Organised Crime Agency? What happened was not a crime, was not serious, and most certainly was not organised.”

Mr Mendy, who had hoped to use his degree to work for the Home Office, said: “I think it’s a joke.

“For them to extradite me cost thousands of pounds in legal fees – over £100 worth of fake money.

“I spent time in jail over something I didn’t do. All this from one holiday.”

No-one was available to comment from John Moores University last night, but it is understood Mr Mendy will resume his studies at JMU in the autumn.

How the injustice unfolded > > >