Posted on 07/27/2009 12:27:10 PM PDT by DemforBush
A British grandmother has become a fugitive from the French judicial system, wanted for a conviction that she never knew she had.
Deborah Dark, 45, from Richmond, West London, was blissfully unaware of her status as a wanted woman when she went to visit her elderly father in Spain. Her plight became clear only as she tried to return home. At the airport she was arrested and incarcerated for a month, as French authorities sought to have her extradited to serve a six-year sentence.
Though a Spanish judge denied the request she was arrested again on her return to London. A European Arrest Warrant has been issued and authorities in every member state of the EU are obliged to detain her should she set foot in their country.
The alleged offence for which Mrs. Dark is now being pursued is from 1988, when she was 24 and was driving home from a holiday in Marbella, Spain, with her eight-year-old daughter. At the French border, customs searched her car and found several kilograms of cannabis beneath the floor and in the sunroof.
Mrs. Dark told the French police that she had been unaware of the drugs, and suspected that her boyfriend of nine months was responsible. He had asked her to hire a car in her name, she said.
A French court believed her account and she was acquitted after eight months on remand. She went home and ended her relationship with her boyfriend...
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Kind of a scary story, really. I wasn't aware that French law allowed prosecutors a "second bite at the apple", so to speak.
Nice boyfriend. “Brokedown Palace” anyone?
And we complain about our justice system!
Not that it doesn’t need a little work to get the Nifong out of it.
Wow, is Jabert still around??
Bingo! Obama's New World Government will let people in Albania and Zaire order your arrest.
The French claim to be so enlightened, what are they doing having Interpol track down a granny on a 20+ year old marijuana conviction they never bothered to tell her about???
Sounds like the police were doing some racial profiling... :0)
I don't know how much of the 'Code Napoleon' comes into play here - "Guilty until proven innocent" kind of thing. This does seem to be possible here, if a prosecutor wins the appeal then she was presumed guilt when she didn't show for the second trial.
What scares me would be how Ruth Buzzi Ginsberg would use this foreign precedent in making her rulings. After all, she has already stipulated that we should use foreign jurisprudence to assist our legal system adapt to the modern world.
There is no such thing as being a little bit pregnant OR believing that the US Constitution is a little outdated.
This is the problem with the “European Arrest Warrant”. UK citizens can be arrested for things that are not a crime in the UK. At least in the US they have to extradite you from one state to another, and you can fight it in court. The EU, of course doesn’t like things that are untidy, like due process.
One of many reasons that the UK needs to leave the EU. It is beyond reforming...
The title is beyond ridiculous. What does her status as a grandmother have to do with anything? She’s 45 not 85 for pete’s sake. Are people older than 40 exempt from the law?
I’m not saying that the authorities are correct here just criticizing the title.
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