Camden New Journal - News: Student sent to Spain

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Camden New Journal - by CHARLOTTE CHAMBERS
Published: 5 July 2007

SENT TO SPAIN FOR JUST £100

Judge orders student’s extradition over ‘fake’ money claim

A STUDENT has been ordered by a judge to be sent to Spain to face trial for handling just £100 in counterfeit money.
Joe Mendy, 22, was given the news he had been dreading on Tuesday afternoon when a judge told him he will not have his case heard in England, and must surrender to police. He will be sent to Spain to face allegations that he had handled fake euros while on holiday in the Canary Islands four years ago.
His holiday in the party resort of Fuerteventura took a turn for the worse when he and two friends were arrested and spent two days in a police cell.
But since then he had not heard anything from the Spanish authorities and had got on with his life and studies in psychology, unaware that charges were still hanging over him.
He discovered he could be facingup to three years in a Spanish prison – if found guilty – when police confronted him at his home in Leybourne Street, Camden Town, in March.
Even if he isn’t sentenced to jail, Mr Mendy will still be held in custody from the moment he steps foot on Spanish soil to the time his trial is held.
He was given 10 days to appeal from Tuesday before plans are made to fly him back to Spain.
He told an extradition hearing at Horseferry Road Magistrates’ Court in Westminster that he was mistreated by Spanish police when he was first arrested on holiday. Although Judge Daphne Wickham accepted it was likely officers had bullied him because of his skin colour – he is mixed race – she said he would receive a fair trial in Spain. A report published in the 1990s by the human rights charity, Amnesty International, provided by Mr Mendy’s barrister as evidence to prove British black nationals received unfair treatment at the hands of the Spanish authorities, was called “irrelevent” by Justice Wickham.
Spain had since signed up to a United Nations torture protocol, she said.
Mr Mendy now faces an agonising wait to hear if an appeal – due to be launched by the renowned human rights law firm Bindman and Partners – is accepted by the High Court.
“The whole thing seems like one big joke,” he said yesterday (Wednesday). “I’m just shocked more than anything. For them to come back after three years… and why have they only arrested me?”
It is not known why two friends who were arrested with him in Spain have not been put in the dock.
Holborn and St Pancras MP Frank Dobson said: “(If the allegations are true), all he’s guilty of is possession of a couple of forged banknotes. Extradition is ridiculous. If the Home Office think he’s involved in serious organised crime, he will be extradited.
“However, if the facts are as he says they are, then his crime is neither serious nor organised.”

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