Extradition and Interpol Red Notice · Alicante · Madrid · All Spain
Detained in Spain on a warrant from another country, or unable to travel because of a red notice?
These proceedings have short deadlines and a narrow scope, and both work in favour of a prepared defence.
In brief. European Arrest Warrant, extradition and Interpol red notice defence before the Audiencia Nacional. Deadlines are short. Speak to us today.
At a glance
People often use the word extradition for everything. Spanish law distinguishes three routes, and the applicable rules are not the same:
The scope of these proceedings is limited: the Spanish court does not retry the underlying case. What it does examine, and where a defence succeeds, includes the identity of the person sought, prescription of the offence or of the penalty, the principle of ne bis in idem where the person has already been tried for the same facts, defects in the warrant or in the documentation, the absence of dual criminality where that requirement applies, and the guarantees offered by the requesting state.
The human rights ground has grown in importance. Following the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union on judicial independence and on detention conditions, a surrender can be refused or suspended where there is a real risk of inhuman treatment or of an unfair trial. That argument requires documented country evidence, not assertion.
Where surrender is granted, the defence work is not finished: the speciality rule limits prosecution to the offences for which surrender was authorised, and conditions can be attached, including the return of a Spanish resident to serve any sentence in Spain.
A red notice can be challenged before the Commission for the Control of Interpol Files, which can order its deletion where the notice breaches the Interpol constitution, in particular the prohibition on notices of a political, military, religious or racial character, or where it lacks sufficient legal basis or violates data protection standards.
These applications are documentary and technical, they take months, and they are decided on the quality of the file submitted. In parallel it is often possible to obtain confirmation of whether a notice or diffusion exists, and to prepare the position in advance of any travel to Spain rather than discovering the problem at an airport.
Passive extradition to states outside the European Union is governed in Spain by Law 4/1985, which sets out the requirements, limits and guarantees of the procedure before the National High Court (Audiencia Nacional). Within the European Union the European Arrest Warrant applies, governed by Law 23/2014 and based on the mutual recognition of judicial decisions.
Each mechanism has its own conditions and defences, and the strategy differs accordingly, so identifying the correct framework at the outset is essential.
An Interpol Red Notice is a request to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition. It is not itself an arrest warrant, and it can be challenged before Interpol’s Commission for the Control of Files where it is politically motivated, disproportionate or otherwise contrary to Interpol’s rules.
Acting on a Red Notice at an early stage, before travel or arrest, can prevent detention and resolve the underlying problem more effectively than waiting for it to crystallise at a border.
Surrender may be refused or made conditional for reasons such as the absence of dual criminality in the cases provided for, a risk of breach of fundamental rights, limitation, the political character of the offence, or the existence of proceedings for the same facts. In the European Arrest Warrant, guarantees on detention conditions and on the right to a retrial after conviction in absentia are also relevant.
We assess each of these grounds against the specific request, because the available defences differ significantly between the European and the non-European procedures.
We assist the requested person from arrest, handling the hearing before the National High Court, the application for provisional release and the presentation of the grounds opposing surrender.
We coordinate the defence with lawyers in the requesting state, so that the strategy is coherent across both jurisdictions and no step in one prejudices the position in the other.
A surrender procedure typically begins with the arrest of the requested person, followed by an appearance and a hearing before the National High Court, and ends with a decision on whether to surrender. Each stage has its own deadlines and opportunities for the defence to be heard.
Understanding where a case sits within that sequence is essential, because the arguments available, and the evidence required to support them, differ from one stage to the next.
Being subject to a surrender request does not automatically mean remaining in custody throughout the procedure. Release, with guarantees such as the surrender of the passport and reporting obligations, can be sought while the substantive question is decided.
We press for provisional liberty wherever the circumstances allow, since these procedures can take time and unnecessary custody causes real and lasting harm.
The rule of speciality means that, in principle, a person who is surrendered may only be prosecuted for the offences for which surrender was granted, and not for others. Related safeguards govern any further surrender to a third state.
These principles can be decisive, and we ensure they are properly invoked, both to limit the scope of any prosecution that follows and to protect the person against being pursued for matters outside the request.
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