Spain

The Italian courts ordered the surrender of the requested person to Spain under a prosecution European Arrest Warrant, subject to their return to Italy to serve any sentence or security measure eventually imposed, while criminal proceedings were also pending against them in Italy. The appellant challenged the refusal to defer surrender under Article 24 of Law No. 69/2005, arguing that the courts should have weighed the respective procedural interests of Italy and Spain and considered a temporary transfer. The Supreme Court of Cassation held that the decision whether to defer surrender involves exclusively the balancing of competing public interests of the two States and does not confer an enforceable subjective right on the requested person. Following the 2021 reform limiting EAW appeals before the Court of Cassation to questions of law, the appellant could not seek review of the Court of Appeal’s discretionary refusal to postpone surrender, and the appeal was therefore declared inadmissible.

The requested person challenged an Italian appellate judgment ordering surrender to Spain for prosecution in connection with an aggravated robbery allegedly committed in Ibiza. He argued that the European Arrest Warrant lacked a sufficient evidentiary basis, that flight risk was absent, and that personal and family medical circumstances should prevent surrender. The Supreme Court of Cassation declared the appeal inadmissible, holding that, following the 2021 reform of Italian EAW legislation, the warrant is no longer required to set out serious indications of guilt or include a separate account of the evidentiary sources, provided that it adequately describes the circumstances of the offence and the requested person’s degree of participation. The Court further held that the executing judicial authority may not reassess the precautionary requirements underlying the warrant, while health-related concerns ordinarily pertain to the execution phase rather than constituting grounds for refusal.

The requested person argued that surrender to Spain should be refused because the European Arrest Warrant did not indicate the maximum duration of pre-trial detention under Spanish law. The Italian Supreme Court held that the former statutory ground for refusal based on the absence of maximum pre-trial detention limits was repealed in 2021, in line with the presumption that EU Member States respect fundamental rights and provide either time limits or periodic judicial review of continued detention. It clarified, however, that detention exceeding a reasonable time may still constitute a bar to surrender under the general protection of fundamental rights. The requested person must therefore provide specific and plausible material showing the absence of adequate limits or equivalent safeguards; in the present case, no such evidence was submitted.

The case concerned a prosecution European Arrest Warrant issued by Spain in relation to a robbery charge. The requested person appealed against the decision of the Court of Appeal of Naples granting surrender, arguing that the warrant did not indicate the evidentiary sources on which he had been identified as one of the perpetrators and that the executing court should have assessed whether the EAW was supported by serious indications of guilt. The Italian Supreme Court held that, following the reform introduced by Legislative Decree No. 10/2021, the executing judicial authority is no longer required to assess the seriousness of the evidence or the sources of proof, but only to verify that the description of the facts is sufficiently capable of identifying a criminal offence attributable to the requested person. The Court also declared inadmissible the additional ground concerning the alleged absence of the original Spanish version of the EAW, holding that new grounds cannot be introduced before the Court of Cassation in EAW proceedings and noting that the arrest was based on the SIS alert and that the Italian translation of the EAW had been transmitted. The appeal was therefore declared inadmissible.

The requested person challenged his surrender to Spain under a prosecutorial European Arrest Warrant concerning alleged participation in an organised group carrying out robberies of luxury watches. The Italian Supreme Court held that, following the 2021 reform of Law No. 69/2005, the absence of an indication of serious evidence of guilt or of the evidentiary sources supporting the accusation does not constitute a ground for refusing surrender. It clarified that the warrant need only contain the minimum formal information necessary for the executing authority to perform the checks assigned to it, including the nature and legal classification of the offences, the time and place of their commission, and the requested person’s alleged degree of participation. The executing court may not request the underlying precautionary order in order to reassess the evidentiary basis, and any failure by the issuing State to provide such information cannot justify refusal of surrender.

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 person subject to an Italian pre-trial detention order and to a prosecution European Arrest Warrant issued by Italy and being executed in Spain. The requested person applied before the Italian preliminary investigations judge, arguing that surrender from Spain to Italy would interfere with his private and family life in Spain and that he could participate in the Italian proceedings remotely. The Italian judge held that there was no need to rule on the application, since the objections raised concerned the execution of the EAW and therefore had to be addressed to the Spanish executing judicial authority. The Italian Supreme Court declared the appeal inadmissible. It held that the Italian issuing judge had no power to decide whether Spain should refuse consent to surrender, whether a “divieto di consegna” applied, or whether surrender would disproportionately affect the requested person’s private and family life. Those issues fall within the competence of the executing judicial authority in Spain. The Court also held that the validity and effectiveness of the Italian pre-trial detention order were not at issue in these proceedings, so Article 31 of Law No. 69/2005 did not apply. Nor were the rules on mutual recognition of alternative measures to pre-trial detention or on the European Investigation Order relevant: the first framework concerns alternative precautionary measures capable of being executed abroad, while the second concerns the taking of evidence, not the remote conduct of an entire criminal proceeding. 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.

Germany issued a European Arrest Warrant against a Ukrainian national for 41 offences of fraud, computer-related crime, and participation in a criminal organisation, in connection with a large-scale "cybertrading" call-centre fraud scheme run out of Kyiv, targeting mainly German-speaking investors through fake trading platforms, false profit charts, and social-engineering "retention agents," causing at least €83,701.22 in proven damage attributable to the requested person acting under aliases. The requested person did not consent to surrender and, invoking his Ukrainian nationality and pending temporary-protection application under Spanish asylum law (Art. 57 LOEX), his marriage to a Spanish-resident partner, and a rental contract, argued insufficient identification, incomplete evidence linking him to the offences, and risk that Germany might subsequently deport him to Ukraine without adequate guarantees. As the offences fell within the catalogue of Art. 20 of Law 23/2014 (transposing the Framework Decision on the EAW), the court held that no double-criminality review was required. Weighing the evidence of only recent, minimal residence in Spain (registered since October 2024, no employment, no social-security registration), the court found no sufficient roots ("arraigo") to justify conditioning surrender on his eventual return to serve any sentence in Spain (Art. 55.2, Law 23/2014), and found no mandatory or optional ground for refusal under Arts. 32, 33, 48 and 49 of Law 23/2014. Surrender to Germany was ordered, subject to the speciality principle, as the requested person had not waived it.

On appeal against Auto 133/2024, the defence raised three grounds, all resting on the claim that the requested person suffered a serious, long-standing psychotic disorder: (a) lack of guarantees against degrading treatment under Art. 4.6 of the Spanish Extradition Act and Art. 3.2(f) of the Spain–Australia Treaty; (b) failure to apply the in dubio pro reo principle to resolve an alleged contradiction between two psychiatric reports; and (c) incompatibility with humanitarian considerations given his status as a person with a long-standing mental disability under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The Plenary Session held that in dubio pro reo has no place in extradition proceedings, which do not adjudicate guilt or assess evidence of the underlying offence — that function belongs exclusively to the requesting State's courts, citing prior Plenary case law and Supreme Court doctrine (STS 498/2023) that in dubio pro reo does not govern the finding of mitigating/exempting circumstances either. Reviewing the medical evidence and a video recording of the person's court appearance, the Plenary found no clear, conclusive basis to hold that a mental disorder deprived him of the ability to understand and contest the proceedings, especially given the most recent report describing him as stable and capable of facing extradition. It also held that Spain's obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (regarding protection of the alleged victim, a minor) reinforced compliance with the bilateral Treaty. The appeal was dismissed and the extradition order was confirmed in full, without costs.

Australia requested the extradition of one of its nationals for prosecution of a continued pattern of child sexual abuse, incest/unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, indecent acts, use of a minor to produce child exploitation material, and possession of child abuse material via a carriage service, allegedly committed between 2018 and February 2021 against the daughter of his former partner, a minor at the time. The Sección Tercera found double criminality satisfied, the offences corresponding under Spanish law to continued sexual abuse/aggression against a minor under 16 (Arts. 181 and 183 CP), exhibitionism (Art. 185 CP), disclosure of secrets (Art. 197 CP) and child pornography offences (Art. 189 CP), each meeting the minimum-penalty threshold under Art. 2.1 of the Spain–Australia Extradition Treaty (1987). The defence argued that the requested person suffered from a serious psychiatric condition (a possible psychotic episode compatible with schizophrenia) rendering him unable to understand the extradition proceedings, and that his surrender would amount to inhuman/degrading treatment under Art. 3.2(f) of the bilateral Treaty and Art. 4.6 of the Spanish Extradition Act. Having reviewed conflicting medical reports, one from Hospital Gregorio Marañón finding him unable to participate in any judicial proceeding, and a later, more current report from a psychiatric prison unit finding him stable and capable of facing the extradition proceedings, including his understanding of and explicit opposition to being extradited, the court held that his cognitive capacity was not shown to be impaired to a degree precluding extradition, and that his pending asylum application (filed after the extradition request) did not bar the extradition decision but would only suspend execution pending its resolution. Extradition was declared appropriate in the judicial phase, subject to final Government approval.

Serbia requested the extradition of its national for prosecution of an armed home invasion robbery committed on 7 September 2015, in which the reclaimed person and several accomplices, wearing balaclavas, forced entry into a private home, threatened the occupants with a firearm, stole several mobile phones, and struck one victim with a crutch. The Sección Cuarta held the facts sufficiently individualised to satisfy double criminality (corresponding under Spanish law to aggravated robbery with violence in an inhabited dwelling, Art. 242 CP, and injuries, Art. 147 CP), rejecting the defence's argument that the absence of a specific description of his individual role (due to the perpetrators' concealed faces) precluded extradition. On the statute-of-limitations plea, the court held that Serbia's 2019 Investigation Order issued by the Public Prosecutor's Office — itself qualifying as a "judicial authority" for extradition purposes under Art. 1 of the European Convention on Extradition — together with subsequent summonses for prosecutorial hearings, had validly interrupted the five-year Spanish limitation period under Art. 132 CP, so that the offence had not prescribed by the time of the 2021 arrest warrant. The generic, undocumented claim of risk of inhuman/degrading treatment was also rejected for lack of concrete substantiation. Extradition was granted.

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