June 07, 2008	Saturday	Jamadi-us-Sani 02, 1429

LUXEMBOURG, June 6: A person convicted in absentia in one European Union country will face arrest in all other states of the 27-nation bloc under new cooperation rules agreed upon by justice ministers on Friday.

A number of EU countries including France and Italy have rules to try suspects who flee justice, including mafia suspects, and hold trials even if the accused is absent. The new rules make it easier for those countries to ask all other EU states to arrest the convicts once they have been tried and sentenced.

The new rules will not force countries like Britain and Germany, which do not try people in absentia, to change that policy.

“It will help ensure that, in the future, citizens who deliberately avoid trials will not be able to escape their consequences,” British Attorney General Baroness Patricia Scotland said of the new text, ahead of the talks.

“It ensures the rights of the defendant are protected,” she said of the text agreed on Friday, because it sets a series of conditions before an absent convict may be arrested.

The person must be informed of the trial, or have been represented by a lawyer there, or have been informed of the ruling and not appealed.

If none of these conditions is fulfilled, the convict should have the right to a new trial, an EU diplomat said. If that is not the case, a country can refuse to extradite a convict, he said.—Reuters