Greek prison assurances held unreliable; Greek law does not provide automatic retrial right: Malcolm Hawkes & Graeme Hall represent

On 28 May 2026, District Judge Clarke discharged a husband and wife from a Greek extradition request which sought their surrender to serve sentences of 10 years and 6 years respectively for an acid attack which allegedly took place in 2001.

In an important judgment, the judge ruled that the assurances provided by the Greek authorities, which purported to offer protection against inhuman and degrading prison conditions, could not be relied on. She found the Greek authorities had recently breached two such assurances provided to the English authorities without any adequate explanation or justification. The judge ruled “I am deeply concerned about now two breaches of assurances given by this state. This court now has evidence of two occasions when assurances given have not been honoured.”

The judge also found that, contrary to the submission of the Greek authorities, the requested persons were not deliberately absent from their trial. In line with the recent decision of the Supreme Court in Bertino v Italy, while the requested persons had provided an address to a prosecutor and left the jurisdiction soon thereafter, there was no evidence to demonstrate that they were aware of any criminal proceedings when they left, or that they were warned that a trial could go ahead in their absence. The judge further ruled that any retrial would be contingent on a Greek court making a finding that the requested persons were not deliberately absent. Accordingly, the requested persons were not entitled to an automatic retrial consistent with the recent Supreme Court decision in Merticariu v Romania.

Graeme Hall, instructed by Enrico Braguglia of Sonn Macmillan Walker Solicitors, represented the husband. Graeme also appeared in the Supreme Court Bertino case.

Malcolm Hawkes, instructed by Katy O’Mara of Hodge Jones and Allen Solicitors, represented the wife. Malcolm also appeared in the Supreme Court Merticariu case.

The defence relied upon expert evidence from Prof Konstantinos Tsitselikis on Greek prison conditions and Alexis Anagnostakis on issues of Greek law.