Belgium

Where multiple applications for house arrest are filed within a short timeframe, the Court of Appeal may legitimately reject the subsequent requests by referring to the reasoning already set out in previous decisions, provided that no new and relevant elements have been introduced. In such circumstances, defence arguments relating to the requested person’s personal or professional situation, or to their ties with the national territory, may be deemed insufficient to alter the prior assessment of custodial needs—especially where the Court has already highlighted a concrete risk of absconding or the existence of transnational support networks making alternative measures inadequate.

The case concerned an extradition request submitted by Belgium against an Albanian national sought for prosecution for:- organized drug trafficking;- participation in a criminal organization.Belgian judicial authorities alleged that the requested person participated in a criminal organization involved in large-scale narcotics trafficking and that approximately 3.2 tons of narcotics were connected to the investigation. Belgian authorities issued:- an arrest warrant;- an Interpol Red Notice.The requested person had previously acquired Turkish citizenship exceptionally by Presidential decision in 2020, but his citizenship was later revoked in 2023 on national-security and public-order grounds.The requested person challenged the citizenship-revocation decision before the Council of State (Danıştay), and the administrative litigation remained pending during extradition proceedings.The requested person additionally filed an international-protection application before Turkish migration authorities.The Çankırı Heavy Penal Court found the extradition request admissible.The defence appealed, arguing inter alia that:- the Belgian extradition request lacked sufficiently concrete factual and evidentiary detail;- no adequate explanation existed regarding where, when, and how the alleged offences were committed;- specialty-principle guarantees had not been provided;- pending citizenship and asylum proceedings had not been resolved;- extradition would disproportionately affect the requested person’s family life and children residing in Türkiye.The Turkish Court of Cassation accepted these objections. The Court held that:- the outcome of the citizenship-revocation litigation and international-protection proceedings should have been awaited;- Belgian authorities had not sufficiently substantiated the allegations with concrete evidence such as: bank-transfer records; Sky ECC communication contents; and other investigative materials; - proportionality analysis under Article 11(4) of Law No. 6706 had not been adequately conducted;- Belgium had failed to provide an explicit specialty-principle undertaking under: Article 10(4) of Law No. 6706; Article 14 ECE.The extradition admissibility judgment was therefore quashed.

The requested person, detained in Finland pursuant to a Belgian European Arrest Warrant issued for prosecution, challenged her continued detention and argued that a monitored travel ban should have been imposed instead. The Supreme Court held that Finnish courts may use a monitored travel ban to secure execution of an EAW surrender decision, but must assess case by case whether such a less intrusive measure is sufficient in light of the risk of absconding and the principle of proportionality. Although the requested person had lived in Finland for several years and had three minor children, the seriousness of the alleged offences, the established flight risk and the fact that detention had lasted only two days justified continued detention. The Court therefore held that a monitored travel ban would not have been sufficient to secure surrender and that the detention order was lawful, proportionate and not unreasonable.