EXTRADITION

Restriction on return - issues of breach of convention rights and extradition to US for non-extradition offence - not relevant at committal stageR v Governor of Brixton Prison and others, ex parte St John: QBD (Lord Justice Brooke and Mr Justice Harrison): 12 July 2001The applicant was sought by the authorities in the State of Pennsylvania where charges including murder had been laid against him.

The US government requested his extradition.

He was committed in custody by the chief metropolitan magistrate pending extradition.The applicant applied for a writ of habeas corpus on the ground that his detention was unlawful because the murder charge could normally be punished in Pennsylvania by the death sentence but the death penalty was precluded by article 1 of the sixth protocol to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights (schedule 1 to the Human Rights Act 1998); and because there was a danger that he might be tried for an offence other than that which had grounded his committal.Paul Garlick QC (instructed by Leo Abse & Cohen, Cardiff) for the applicant.

John Hardy (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) for the respondents.Held, refusing the application, that whether extradition proceedings would breach the rights in article 1 of the sixth protocol was a question best addressed at the stage of any executive decision to return rather than at committal; and that, in the particular case of extradition to the US, the issue whether there was a danger of the trial of an offence other than that which had formed the basis of the English extradition process was not a relevant concern at committal although it would, again, be relevant at the stage of the decision to return.