Of Sara Bianchi
Thursday 31 In March the Brussels Court of Appeal gave the green light to the surrender of Salah Abdeslam (known for the Paris terrorist attacks) to the French authorities. The terrorist was in fact detained, after his capture, in the maximum security area of ​​the Bruges prison and, following the attacks in Belgium, he invoked the right to silence and through his lawyer asked to be extradited to France.
When the transport will take place and the chosen means of transport are news that will remain secret until the last minute to avoid attempts at evasion or, worse, a new terrorist attack.

However, the procedure concerning Salah's surrender to France cannot be properly included within the extradition process as it, dal 13 June 2002, with the framework decision 2002/584/JHA of the European Union, was created, to make cooperation between countries easier, the instrument of the European arrest warrant which Italy implemented with law. n. 69/2005.
The functioning of the mandate can be summarized in this way: “A person who has committed a serious crime in a European Union country (EU) but who lives in another of them can be sent back to the first country to be brought to trial quickly and with little administrative burden.”

This type of instrument in fact replaces extradition in the countries of the European Union, thus reducing the timescales granted to the various national judicial authorities and is applied to all those crimes punished with "a prison sentence or a security measure depriving liberty of a maximum duration of no less than one year" or by "conviction with a final sentence to a prison sentence or a security measure deprivation of liberty lasting no less than four months". The difference with extradition in terms of time is notable because while the first trial can last even more than a year and a half, that of the mandate almost never lasts more than three months and in particular cases, as per the consent of the interested party, it can last as little as three weeks.

The extradition process, however, is much longer and more complex.It consists in fact of an institution for which a state delivers (passive extradition) an individual who is on his territory to a second state that requests it (active) in order to carry out a prison sentence, in this case we speak of executive extradition, or to a trial, for extradition proceedings. It is a very important instrument for international cooperation and is regulated almost exclusively by rules of international treaty law such as bilateral treaties or multilateral conventions..
The principle that regulates these types of relationships is that of "either to give or to judge", hence a state, in whose territory a person guilty of crimes has taken refuge must either judge him according to its own laws or allow the extradition requested by other states.

In Italy the institution of extradition is regulated by the various treaties that are ratified by Italy, by the constitutional provisions (art 10 e 26), by the rules contained in the penal code and in the code of criminal procedure.

As for this last code, there are some particularly incisive articles to highlight.
In the first chapter, regarding extradition to foreign countries we find:
Art.697. Extradition and powers of the Minister of Grace and Justice.
1. The surrender of a person to a foreign state for the execution of a foreign prison sentence or other measure restricting personal freedom can only take place through extradition.
2. In the competition of multiple extradition requests, the minister of grace and justice establishes the order of precedence. To this end he takes into account all the circumstances of the case and in particular the date of receipt of the applications, the gravity and place of commission of the crime or crimes, the nationality and residence of the requested person and the possibility of re-extradition from the requesting State to another State

Art. 698. Political crimes. Protection of fundamental human rights.
1. Extradition cannot be granted for a political crime or when there is reason to believe that the accused or convicted person will be subjected to persecutory or discriminatory acts on racial grounds, of religion, of sex, of nationality, of language, political opinions or personal or social conditions or to cruel punishment or treatment, inhuman or degrading or in any case to acts that constitute a violation of one of the fundamental rights of the person.
2. If for the fact for which extradition is requested the death penalty is foreseen by the law of the foreign state, extradition can only be granted if the same State gives assurances, deemed sufficient by both the judicial authority and the Minister of Grace and Justice, that such punishment will not be inflicted or, if already inflicted, will not be performed.

In the second chapter, relating to extradition from abroad:
Art. 720. Extradition request.
1. The Minister of Justice is competent to ask a foreign state for the extradition of an accused or convicted person against whom a measure restricting personal freedom is to be carried out.. To this end, the Attorney General at the Court of Appeal in whose district the conviction is being prosecuted or has been pronounced makes a request to the Minister of Grace and Justice., sending him the necessary deeds and documents.
2. Extradition can be requested on his own initiative by the Minister of Justice.
3. The Minister of Justice may decide not to present the extradition request or to defer its presentation by communicating this to the requesting judicial authority.
4. The Minister of Justice is competent to decide on the acceptance of any conditions imposed by the foreign state to grant extradition, provided that they do not conflict with the fundamental principles of the Italian legal system. The judicial authority is bound to respect the accepted conditions.
5. The minister of grace and justice can dispose, for the purpose of extradition, searches abroad for the accused or convicted person and request their provisional arrest.

In general, however, extradition is conditional on the requirement of double criminality i.e. that “iThe act must constitute a crime under the criminal law of both the requesting State, than that of the grantor, regardless of the diversity of the sanctioning regimes."

There are still states without extradition to Italy today, that is, they have not yet concluded treaties with our country and are therefore the preferred destinations for those who do not want to run the risk of being extradited and having to face a trial here:
Capo Verde; Belize; Jamaica; United Arab Emirates; Cambogia; Madagascar; Malaysia; Namibia; Seychelles.

Source: https://lospiegone.com/2016/04/07/estradizione-e-mandato-di-arresto-europeo/