Extradition to Kuwait discharged

Our client's extradition was sought on four separate requests by the Government of Kuwait, where he was convicted in his absence, to serve a three-year sentence for an offence of issuing a cheque without sufficient funds. The case involved extremely complex evidence gathering of a number of expert witnesses to include leading prison expert, Dr Alan Mitchell, and Arab Gulf politics expert, Dr Christopher Davidson.

Rare Extradition Request

As Kuwait does not have the same monitoring mechanisms in the EU nor publishes its reports on its prisons, Dr Mitchell travelled to Kuwait to conduct a physical inspection of the prison following a defence request to the Government of Kuwait.  There have been very few requests for extradition by the Government of Kuwait. The Bilateral Treaty between the United Kingdom and Kuwait was signed on the 11 December 2016 and came into force on the 10 March 2021. As such, some of the key issues in this case, to include prison conditions and retrial rights have never been considered by the UK courts before.

The key issues in this case were as follows: there is no prima facie case; there is no extradition offence; there is no right to retrial; his extradition would not be compatible with his Human Rights under Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights because of the inhuman and degrading prison conditions in Kuwait and likely torture from state agents; his extradition would not be compatible with his Human Rights under Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights because he will be unable to have a fair re-trial; due to passage of time, it would be unjust and/or oppressive to extradite the requested person given the substantial changes to his life in the 6 year period since the alleged offences; his extradition would not be compatible with his Human Rights under Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights because it would be disproportionate to return the Requested Person given his substantial ties to the UK and abuse of process.

Extradition Discharged

Extradition was discharged in a 98 page judgment with the District Judge finding that there is no right of re-trial in respect of three of the requests and that extradition would a disproportionate interference with his Article 8 rights.

Fiona Haddadeen was the solicitor with conduct of this case. Ben Keith of 5 St Andrew's Hill and Rodney Dixon KC of Temple Garden Chambers were the instructed counsel.