This file is a mirror of EUSKAL HERRIA JOURNAL by Basque Red Net.

EXTRADITION, DEPORTATION, AND EXPULSION

Formal Procedures for Extradition

The process of extradition always includes a formal request for the surrender of the person wanted, together with certain well-defined conditions for surrender. Extradition treaties vary considerably in regard to the offenses listed in them as the basis of surrender but the actual procedure utilized in extradition has been standardized fairly well all over the world.

Extradition is normally based on bilateral treaties.

A request for the surrender of an alleged fugitive criminal must be presented to the foreign state through the diplomatic agent of the seeking government. When such a request is received, the foreign government institutes an investigation through its judicial agencies to determine whether there is sufficient evidence, in accordance with the local law, to warrant an arrest of the fugitive. If sufficient evidence is submitted and accords with the local law requirements, the fugitive is held pending the arrival of law-enforcement agents of the seeking state. The agents then receive the fugitive into their custody and return him to the state in which the alleged crime was committed.

When the fugitive has been surrendered and is tried, the principle of specialty requires that he/she must be tried only for the specific offense or offenses mentioned (in list or by penalties involved) in the request for his extradition --unless the asylum state permits otherwise. In other words, the fugitive may only be tried for offenses committed before extradition and for which he was surrendered.


Extradition of Basque Refugees from France

In the past, France refused to extradite Basque refugees to Spain on grounds that they would be subjected to police torture. During Franquism and until the first years of the Socialist government, France did not extradite Basque political refugees.

This policy was maintained by the French socialist government until the Spanish socialists took office in Spain in October 1982. French Minister of Justice Robert Badinter made a public statement against extraditing Basques to Spain: "France will always welcome the [Basque] political refugees". Badinter compared the Basque armed organization Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (E.T.A., Basque Homeland and Freedom) to the anti-Nazi resistance. Another senior government official, Minister of Interior Gaston Defferre, also opposed the extradition of Basque refugees. In an interview with the weekly French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, Defferre said: "I strongly believe that to grant the extraditions [of Basque refugees] go against all French traditions.". Defferre was legal advisor to Mikel Goikoetxea Elorriaga, "Txapela", an alleged leader of E.T.A.

In September 1984, France, under strong pressure from the Spanish government (the GAL death squads, financed by the Spanish government to kill Basque refugees in France allegedly connected to E.T.A., were in full campaign in Northen Basque Country, under French administration), began to extradite Basques. A general strike to protest the extraditions took place in Southern Basque Country (under Spanish administration) on
September 26.

Deportation of Basque Refugees

Over 100 Basque refugees have been extradited from France since 1984. But given the numerous protests in Northern Basque Country (under French administration) and other places within the French State such as Brittany, in 1984, the French government began to deport Basque refugees to Latin America and Africa. France acted as a mediator locating a country which would take the refugees, then offering that country something such as increased foreign aid. Spain paid for the relocation expenses of the refugees as well as their room and board.

Basques deportees lack legal status and protection. They are neither prisoners, refugees, tourists or second-class citizens. Because they lack judicial status they have no legal rights and protection and are subjected to persecution and violence by the Spanish police in these countries. In Ecuador, two Basque deportees were tortured with electric shocks by the Spanish police. In Uruguay, two refugees were abducted from their homes and torture for several days. Under these conditions, fifty refugees were deported from France between January 1984 and May 1989. Forty deportees remain confined to Cape Verde, Cuba, Panama, Dominican Republic, Sao Tome and Venezuela.

Expulsion of Basque Refugees

A third type of treatment began in 1986 when a french conservative government under Jacques Chiriac began to expel Basque refugees to Spain. Expulsion is an administrative procedure by which the person wanted is handed over from the police of the foreign state to police of the seeking state, without any conditions or judicial intervention.

Between July 1986 and May 1988 the French government handed two-hundred Basque refugees over to the Spanish police in application of the "absolute urgency" law of 1940. The GAL killings stopped when France began to expel the refugees to Spain.

A french socialist government took office in 1988 and France stopped the expulsions but some refugees were still expelled under the "reconduction to the border" law, the same procedure with a different name: police to police expulsion without the intervention of a judge.

Expulsions caused strong protests within the French state, particularly, in Northern Basque Country, but the protests, no matter how strongly worded, had no effect and France continues to this day expelling Basques refugees to Spain.

International Concern over Extradition and Expulsion of Basque Refugees

A report from Amnesty Internation (AI) for the period April-September 1987 states the organization's disagreement with the expulsion of Basque refugees to Spain and quotes article three of the United Nations Convention Against Torture, ratified by France on February 18, 1986:

Article 3.1:

"No State Party shall expel, return (refouler) or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subject to torture".

AI's 1989 report for the year 1988, included the case of Jose Askasibar Aperribar:

Amnesty International wrote to the French authorities in August 1988 expressing concern about the allegations of torture and ill-treatment made by Jose Askasibar Aperribai in October 1987. Askasibar was expelled from France and charged by Spain with terrorist activities. He was acquitted in June. He alleged that he had been hooded, beaten and threatened, given electric shocks to his shoulders and testicles, and had his head forced into a bath tub filled with water. A forensic doctor who examined him during detention noted injuries to his wrists and signs of bruising. The authorities replied to Amnesty International giving details of his acquittal but made no comment on his allegations of torture, nor did they give information requested by Amnesty International regarding judiciary inquiry.

On June 2, 1994, Joxe Domingo Aizpurua finished serving a four-year jail sentence in the French State. Immediately after he was granted freedom, members of the French police arrested here inside the Fleury Merogis Prison and handed him over to the Spanish paramilitary Civil Guard in Irun. Aizpurua was tortured while in incommunicado arrest for fourteen days, during which time he was denied the right to a lawyer of his choice. After being questioned by the Spanish National Court, Aizpurua was granted provisional freedom.

Investigations in 1994 by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) confirmed that Aizpurua had been tortured. Spain did not make public the CPT report until March 1996.

French courts have ruled against some the extradition of several Basque refugees alleging that they cannot be prosecuted in Spain for an offense for which they have already been convicted in France.

In 1996 the French Government agreed to stronger cooperation with Spain against Basque dissidents, including expelling Basque political prisoners to Spain once they finish serving their jail sentences in France. Seven Basque political prisoners have been expelled to Spain since May 1995. Some of them have been tortured by the Spanish police.

French human rights groups, the `Committee for the Rights of the People,' the `Association of Christians for the Abolition of Torture,' the `Support Committee to Refugees in the French State,' and the `Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in the Basque Country,' the French union of judges, and Bishop Jacques Gaillot, have asked the French Government to stop the expulsion of Basques which they consider illegal and undemocratic.

Belgium and Spain came to diplomatic blows in 1996 when Spain suspended judicial cooperation following a Belgian court's refusal of a request to extradite two Basque refugees accused of collaborating with the Basque armed organization Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, (ETA, Basque Homeland and Freedom).

In March 1997, Portugal refused to extradite a Basque refugee accused of collaborating with ETA.

The spanish right-wing government of Jose Maria Aznar has been pressing European Union member states to support the abolishment of political asylum for EU citizens. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch oppose the Spanish proposal under which countries would no longer be able to refuse to extradite a suspect in a politically motivated crime.

Extraditions from Latin America

Traditionally, Basques have enjoyed an effective right of asylum in Mexico, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Extradition of Basques from these countries requested by Spain have been in most cases denied on grounds the alleged offense to be political in nature. But in the 1990s Spain began to apply more pressure on these countries promising foreign credits and economic treaties in exchange for the extradition of Basque refugees.

In 1994, after strong pressure from Spain and a change in its asylum law, Uruguay granted the extradition of three Basque refugees. The decision of Uruguay to extradite the Basques caused numerous protests in Montevideo and other Latin American cities. Three people died in Montevideo during the protests and a general strike against extraditions.

In April 1996, a police official in Venezuela, without the knowledge of his superiors, carried out an order of arrest from the Spanish National Court against a Basque refugee living in the country since 1984. The refugee was arrested without his extradition having been requested by the Spanish State. He was later released. After diplomatic blows with Spain, Venezuela's Interior Minister asked Spain to respect Venezuela's sovereignty and notified the Spanish authorities that the police (DISIP) would no longer cooperate with the Spanish secret service. Basque refugees in Venezuela must report to the DISIP every month, and in some cases, every fifteen days.

Mexico and Spain in 1995 negotiated a new extradition agreement which amended the previous treaty to exclude membership to an armed group from the political offense category thus, narrowing the scope of the `political offense exception'. In May 1997, for the first time, Mexico approved the extradition of a Basque political refugee to Spain.

There are over 2,000 Basque refugees in France, Europe and Latin America. Many of them are subject to the harassment, and sometimes violence, of the Spanish police and their allies.

Sources: Luis Nuñez Astrain, Iñaki Egaña, and Iñigo Elkoro, Estado Español y Actividad Parapolicial (Acusación Popular en representación de los familiares de las Victimas del GAL, Euskal Herria, 1995); Gerhard von Glahn, Law Among Nations (1992)