Cyprus

The Supreme Court of Cyprus dismissed a habeas corpus application challenging the detention of a requested person whose extradition to the United States had been ordered for prosecution for cyber offences, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The Court held that, under the applicable Cyprus–United States extradition framework, the requesting State was required to provide a statement of facts and evidence showing reasonable grounds to believe that the offences had been committed and that the requested person had committed them, but the extradition court was not required to weigh conflicting evidence or determine guilt. It found that the evidence linking the requested person to the relevant email accounts, command-and-control infrastructure and internet activity was objectively sufficient to meet that threshold, while challenges to the weight of individual items of evidence were matters for the U.S. trial court. The Court also rejected allegations of abuse of process and breach of the duty of candour, including arguments based on a subsequent confession by another person, finding no evidence of bad faith by the requesting State.

The case concerned a European Arrest Warrant issued by the Cypriot judicial authorities for prosecution in relation to offences including armed robbery, conspiracy to commit armed robbery and attempted burglary. The Court of Appeal ordered surrender, finding that the EAW contained the information required by Italian law, that the facts were also offences under Italian law, and that no mandatory or optional grounds for refusal applied. The requested person challenged the decision, arguing that surrender should have been postponed under Article 24 of Law No. 69/2005 because he had to serve a sentence in Italy for a different offence, and that surrender should in any event have been made subject to a return guarantee under Article 19(2), given his family ties in Italy. The Italian Supreme Court declared the appeal inadmissible. It held that postponement of surrender under Article 24 is discretionary: the Court of Appeal had reasonably declined to postpone surrender because the Cypriot request concerned serious offences, including aggravated robbery and criminal association, whereas the Italian sentence concerned a less serious aggravated theft conviction. The Court also held that temporary transfer to Italy under Article 24(2) requires a request from the issuing judicial authority, which was absent. As to the return guarantee, the Court found that the requested person’s family presence in Italy was insufficient to establish genuine and stable integration, especially given that he had not regularized his stay, had no lawful employment or residence permit, retained Serbian citizenship and property in Serbia, and had criminal records relevant to the offences prosecuted in Cyprus. The surrender order was therefore upheld.

The Supreme Court of Cyprus dismissed an appeal against the rejection of a habeas corpus application challenging the requested person’s extradition to Russia for prosecution for large-scale corporate tax evasion. The Court accepted that the assurances provided by the Russian authorities could not be regarded as satisfactory, in particular in light of Russia’s withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights system, but held that this did not automatically preclude extradition. It reiterated that the requested person bears the burden of establishing, through concrete and specific evidence, substantial grounds for believing that he personally faces a real risk of ill-treatment, an unfair trial or other human-rights violations, and found that such an individualized risk had not been demonstrated. The Court also rejected the allegation that the prosecution was pursued for ulterior motives, holding that suspicion alone was insufficient and that bad faith had to be established by positive and convincing evidence.

EAW and double criminality: it is sufficient that the specific conduct is punishable as a criminal offence in both legal systems, regardless of any differences not only in the penalties but also in the legal classification and in all the elements required to establish the offence. To enable the Italian judge to carry out this assessment, the law provides that the issuing State shall transmit a “report on the facts attributed to the requested person”, indicating the time of their commission; such a report may be replaced by the documentation transmitted by the issuing State, provided that it allows the Italian judicial authority to perform the review entrusted to it by law.

The People's Republic of China requested the extradition of two individuals — a mother and son residing in Paphos, Cyprus since 2014 — for prosecution in connection with the alleged unlawful absorption of public deposits in violation of Article 176 of the Chinese Criminal Code, allegedly committed between August 2012 and April 2014 through a British company operating in Beijing. The requested persons raised objections on both formal and substantive grounds, arguing inter alia that their surrender would violate the fundamental principles of Cypriot and European law, given the prevailing situation of torture and systemic human rights violations in Chinese detention facilities. The court found that the formal requirements of the bilateral Extradition Treaty of 29 June 2018 (ratified by Law 12(III)/2019) and the double criminality condition were satisfied, but concluded — relying extensively on the ECtHR judgment in Liu v. Poland (App. No. 37610/2018, 6.10.2022) and expert evidence — that a general situation of violence and torture exists in Chinese detention and penitentiary facilities, thereby relieving the requested persons of the obligation to demonstrate specific personal risk factors. The court further held that the diplomatic assurances provided by China through the bilateral channel were insufficient to eliminate the real risk of ill-treatment, and accordingly rejected the extradition request as mandatorily precluded under Article 3(d) and (θ) of the Treaty.