Spain

The case concerned a prosecution European Arrest Warrant issued by the Court of Móstoles, Spain, for robbery and personal injury. The requested person was also in custody in Italy in separate drug-related proceedings and challenged the surrender decision because the Court of Appeal had refused to postpone surrender under Article 24 of Law No. 69/2005. The Italian Supreme Court held that the complaint concerned the discretionary assessment entrusted to the Court of Appeal when deciding whether surrender should be postponed to allow domestic proceedings to continue. Such an assessment, when supported by adequate reasoning, is not reviewable before the Supreme Court as a mere defect of reasoning. In any event, the Court noted that the Spanish proceedings were more advanced, since prosecution had already been brought and trial was pending, whereas the Italian proceedings were still at an early investigative stage. The requested person had also failed to identify any specific prejudice to his defence in Italy, relying only on a generic claim that surrender would impair his participation in the investigation. The appeal was therefore declared inadmissible.

The case concerned a prosecution European Arrest Warrant issued by the Court of Cornellà de Llobregat, Spain, in criminal proceedings for drug trafficking within a wider investigation into a criminal association aimed at narcotics trafficking. The requested person challenged the surrender decision, arguing that the Italian Court of Appeal had failed to carry out an autonomous assessment of the precautionary grounds underlying the EAW and should have awaited the outcome of an appeal pending in Spain against the domestic custodial measure. The Italian Supreme Court held that those complaints sought a review of the foreign precautionary order, which falls within the jurisdiction of the issuing State and is outside the scope of review of the executing judicial authority. However, the Court found that the Court of Appeal had failed to rule on the requested person’s express request, as an Italian citizen, that any future custodial sentence be served in Italy under Article 19(2) of Law No. 69/2005. Since formal Italian citizenship was sufficient and no further factual assessment was required, the Supreme Court directly added the condition that surrender be subject to the requested person’s return to Italy to serve any sentence imposed in Spain, dismissing the appeal in all other respects.

In European Arrest Warrant proceedings, the Italian nationality of the requested person excludes the need for the Court of Appeal to assess their settled residence or integration in Italy. Such assessment may be relevant, as an optional ground for refusal under Article 18-bis(2) of Law No. 69/2005, only in the case of an EAW for the execution of a sentence or detention order, namely one based on a foreign judicial decision imposing a custodial sentence or detention measure. Conversely, where the EAW is issued for the purposes of prosecution, surrender of an Italian national may be ordered, provided that surrender is made conditional upon the person’s return to Italy to serve any custodial sentence that may ultimately be imposed, pursuant to Article 19(2) of Law No. 69/2005.

Extradition to Peru was granted upon verification of treaty requirements, including double criminality and the existence of a sufficient evidentiary basis, without any review of the merits. Structural deficiencies in detention conditions were held insufficient, per se, to refuse surrender. However, where a real and individualized risk to life or physical integrity is established — including risks arising from non-state actors —, extradition may be conditioned on specific protective guarantees.

Articles 10 and 14 of Law No. 69 of 2005 must be interpreted as meaning that, for the consent to surrender to be valid, the requested person must: (a) be assisted by a defence lawyer; (b) have been adequately informed of the content of the European Arrest Warrant, of the consequences of consenting to surrender, and of the irrevocability of such consent (as well as of the waiver of the benefit referred to in Article 10(1)). From the minutes of the validation hearing it emerges that the applicant, assisted by court-appointed counsel and in the presence of an interpreter, was informed of the content of the arrest warrant and of the possibility to consent, or not, to surrender to Spain, as well as to waive, or not, the principle of specialty. He was also informed that any consent and waiver given would be irrevocable.

Where there is a potential overlap between the charges forming the basis of a European Arrest Warrant and the provisional charges brought in criminal proceedings pending in Italy, the Court is required to assess the applicability of the optional ground for refusal set out in Article 18-bis of Law No. 69/2005. Under this provision, surrender may be refused where criminal proceedings are pending in Italy in respect of the same facts underlying the European Arrest Warrant. In the case at hand, the Court of Appeal essentially failed to ascertain whether this condition was met, having merely stated that the predicate offences were different, without carrying out any specific assessment in relation to the offence of criminal association. In so doing, it breached Article 18-bis, which—according to settled case law—requires the Court of Appeal, where the request for surrender concerns acts committed in part within the national territory, to verify both the identity of the facts and whether criminal proceedings are already pending in Italy in respect of the conduct underlying the European Arrest Warrant.

Grounds of appeal concerning the assessment of the person’s integration within the territory of the State are inadmissible where, although formally framed as a violation of law, they in fact relate to the reasoning of the decision. Article 22 of Law No. 69 of 22 April 2005 does not allow an appeal to the Court of Cassation against a judgment of the Court of Appeal on a surrender request on the basis of defects in reasoning. In the present case, the ground of appeal—though labelled as an erroneous application of the law—essentially amounts to alleging defects in the reasoning of the contested judgment. The applicant, in fact, challenged aspects relating to the merits of the Court of Appeal’s assessment of his integration in Italy. However, it is not for the Court of Cassation to verify the logical soundness of that assessment, nor to re-examine the documents on file in order to determine whether the evaluation carried out on the merits could lead to different conclusions. In particular, the Court of Appeal clarified—on grounds not open to criticism—that the documentation provided merely demonstrated a very recent presence of the requested person in Italy, considering that the marriage to the person holding the lease of the accommodation had been celebrated in February 2025 and that the declaration only indicated that the person worked at his car wash, without specifying since when. The Court therefore held that there was no evidence of the requested person’s genuine integration in Italy.

The case concerned an extradition request submitted by the Kingdom of Spain against a Croatian national sought for:- drug trafficking;- membership in a criminal organization.Spanish judicial authorities alleged that the requested person participated in an international cocaine-trafficking network involving approximately 980 kilograms of cocaine transported from Brazil toward Spain through maritime routes.Spanish authorities issued:- an international arrest warrant;- a European Arrest Warrant;- and a provisional detention order.The requested person was apprehended in İstanbul following intelligence and operational cooperation involving Europol and Turkish anti-narcotics authorities. A forged passport was allegedly discovered during the arrest.The Kırklareli 1st Heavy Penal Court found the extradition request admissible under Law No. 6706.The defence appealed, arguing inter alia that:- the extradition request insufficiently specified the offences and applicable legal provisions;- the alleged offence may not have fallen within Spanish territorial jurisdiction because the narcotics seizure occurred on the high seas;- the organization offence had not been separately analyzed;- fair-trial and defence-right guarantees had not been sufficiently examined;- family and social integration circumstances had not been assessed under Article 11(4) of Law No. 6706.The Turkish Court of Cassation partially accepted these objections. The Court held that:- extradition admissibility must be separately assessed for each offence forming the basis of the request;- the lower court failed to separately evaluate the “membership in a criminal organization” allegation;- Spanish authorities had not sufficiently provided the applicable legal provisions and explanatory legal framework required under Article 12(2)(c) of the European Convention on Extradition;- supplementary information should therefore have been requested pursuant to Article 18(2) of Law No. 6706 and Article 13 ECE.The extradition admissibility judgment was therefore quashed.

In proceedings concerning a European Arrest Warrant, the injured party has no standing to participate in the surrender procedure, as it does not fall within the categories of persons exhaustively listed under Article 17(1) of Law No. 69 of 22 April 2005. (Case concerning the application by the political party Vox to intervene, as an injured party, in the execution proceedings of a European Arrest Warrant issued by the Spanish Tribunal Supremo against C.P.C., in relation to offences connected with the organisation, in 2017, of the Catalan independence referendum.)

The case concerned a request by Turkey for the extradition of a Turkish national for prosecution for alleged membership of the FETÖ/PDY organisation. The conduct described in the extradition request consisted essentially of having greeted visitors during a Spanish-language training programme in Spain, participated in meetings in a student house allegedly linked to the organisation, and read books associated with FETÖ and the Risale-i Nur. The Audiencia Nacional held that, although the formal extradition documents had been submitted through diplomatic channels, the facts described did not amount to any criminal offence under Spanish law. It accepted the Public Prosecutor’s reasoning that neither the alleged reading of religious or ideological texts nor the alleged association with followers of Fethullah Gülen, without concrete terrorist acts or participation in criminal conduct, could satisfy the requirement of double criminality. The Court therefore refused extradition at the judicial stage, without examining the remaining grounds for refusal raised by the defence