The case of Gary McKinnon and the unpopular US/UK treaty dominated coverage of the extradition review in the mainstream press. So it made a pleasant change to read Joshua Rozenberg’s piece in the Gazette. While I share concerns about the treatment Mr McKinnon might face if extradited, the problems with our extradition laws do not start and end there.

I do not agree with everything in the review but it did make some very positive recommendations on the European Arrest Warrant, responsible for over 1,000 extraditions from the UK last year (compared with about 10 a year to the US).

If implemented, these would address some serious cases of injustice.

Two years ago, for example, our client Andrew Symeou was extradited to Greece where he spent months in one of Europe’s worst prisons awaiting trial. Thankfully, Andrew was cleared when the trial finally started two years later.

The review not only called for the EU to work to improve Europe’s detention regimes, but also for a power to delay extradition until the country is trial-ready. This would enable someone like Andrew to wait for trial at home, instead of being sent to languish in a foreign jail.

These kinds of proposals lack the drama of ‘wholesale reform’ but they would address some real problems with our extradition laws, while allowing us to retain the kind of effective extradition system we need to tackle cross-border crime. It would be tragic if they were completely obscured by the disappointment of those who had hoped the review would back their calls to tear up the US treaty.

Jago Russell, chief executive, Fair Trials International, London EC4