Italian court to decide whether to compensate wrongly imprisoned man

http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/mar/28/extradition-arapi-compensation-wrongly-imprisoned

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What happens if someone is wrongly accused of a serious crime by a foreign country and held in jail in Britain while extradition proceedings are carried out? Are they entitled to compensation in the same way as a wrongly convicted person? A court case which opened in Italy this month may give us the answer.

An Italian court has been hearing the case of Edmond Arapi, an Albanian who now lives in Staffordshire, and who is claiming compensation from the Italian authorities for wrongful arrest and false imprisonment. In 2006, without his knowledge and in his absence, Arapi was convicted of murder by an Italian court and received a sixteen year jail sentence. In fact, Arapi, who is 31, had never visited Genoa, where the murder took place, and had an alibi that placed him in a cafe in Staffordshire at the time of the crime.

Arapi grew up near the town of Fier in Albania and came legally to the UK in 2000 where he met his wife, Georgina, the following year. They now have three small children and Arapi works as a chef. He has only been outside the UK twice in the last ten years: once, very briefly, in 2006, to visit Albania for his wedding to Georgina and, on the second occasion, for a four-week holiday there in 2009.

It was only when he was arrested at Gatwick airport in 2009 on his return from the holiday in Albania that he was aware of the murder conviction. The confusion had arisen because of a case of mistaken identity: the person wanted for the murder had a similar name and came from the same area of Albania.

However, while the extradition proceedings took place, Arapi was held for a number of weeks in jail in England, to the distress of his young family and pregnant wife. Following a campaign led by the charity, Fair Trials International (FTI), the Italian authorities accepted that an error had been made and dropped the case and extradition proceedings against him.

It is not yet clear whether the Italian authorities will accept that Arapi is entitled to compensation from them for what happened but the action could provide an important precedent for the growing number of cases involving extradition of people who later turn out to be innocent of the crime for which they were charged.

"Edmond Arapi did nothing wrong but was convicted of murder, spent weeks in jail and lived with threat of extradition hanging over him for a year," said Jago Russell, chief executive of FTI. "It is now time for the Italian authorities to recognise the suffering they have caused Edmond and his family and for the European Union to improve its fast-track extradition system to protect against future cases of injustice."