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A Dutch court has refused to extradite eight suspects facing
drugs charges in Belgium to the Belgian authorities, saying it needed more
information about prison conditions there.
The eight are thought to be part of
an international gang which has been smuggling drugs into Europe from South
America and were arrested in a joint Dutch Belgian operation.
However, judges
in Amsterdam said they would not hand over the men to face trial because of
concerns about the state of Belgian prisons. The Council of Europe’s Committee
for the Prevention of Torture said last month that conditions in Belgium’s
prisons were the worst it had seen in Europe, particularly in terms of
overcrowding.
‘The court must refuse a transfer if there is talk in the
requesting country of a fundamental violation of human rights,’ the court said
in its ruling.
All extraditions to Belgium have now been suspended pending
further research. Last year, the Netherlands also stopped extraditions to
Belgium during a prison officers’ strike.
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