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The UK requested that Portugal surrender a Portuguese national accused of murder. At the time the international arrest warrant was issued, the EU notification made on behalf of Portugal under Article 603(2) of the EU‑UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement stated that Portugal would only surrender Portuguese nationals, on a reciprocal basis, in cases of terrorism or organised crime. When the requested person was arrested, a new notification was already in force, which no longer restricted the surrender of Portuguese nationals in those cases.The Portuguese Supreme Court held that, under the rules governing the temporal application of extradition law, the relevant notification was the one in force when the international arrest warrant was issued. Consequently, Portugal could not grant the surrender of one of its own nationals in a case that did not involve terrorism or organised crime.

The withdrawal of the extradition request entails the revocation of real precautionary measures, with the consequent return to the rightful owner of the assets subject to seizure, given that—pursuant to Article 6(2) of the European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters of 20 April 1959—the requesting State is not entitled to dispose of assets obtained through the execution of a letter rogatory that has subsequently been withdrawn. (In the present case, the Court quashed without remittal the order by which the Court of Appeal had ordered the return of the seized assets, limited to those not yet transferred to the requesting authority).