AC-2023-LON-003019 - [2025] EWHC 1851 (Admin)

Fecha: 25-Jul-2025

Submissions on behalf of the Appellant

Submissions on behalf of the Appellant

52.

Mr Fitzgerald submitted the District Judge was wrong to find extradition was consistent with s25 of the Act. He identified the following failings which, individually or collectively, led to the Judge making a decision that was wrong:

The Judge wrongly focussed on suicide risk rather than the cumulative impact of the Appellant’s mental and physical health and the gravity of the inevitable deterioration on extradition.

The Judge wrongly preferred the evidence of Professor Fazel on suicide risk.

The Judge unreasonably concluded that there was no substantial risk the Appellant would commit suicide.

The Judge wrongly found the Appellant could control the impulse to commit suicide and the risk could be managed on extradition.

The Judge wrongly relied upon Dr Watt’s supposed assumptions about safeguards within the German prison estate.

The Judge reached an unreasonable conclusion on the impact of extradition and incarceration on the Appellant’s physical health.

She wrongly ignored the totality of Dr Oehmichen’s evidence on the inadequacy of healthcare within the German prison estate.

53.

In addition, Mr Fitzgerald submitted the decision in Modi v Government of India [2022] EWHC 2829 (Admin) refines the Turner tests in two significant ways. Firstly, it makes clear there is no mandatory requirement for an irresistible impulse to commit suicide, provided the urge to commit suicide arises from mental disorder and not from a rational decision to take the requested person’s life [¶128-129]. Secondly, the decision explains the interplay between the ‘whatever steps are taken test’ in paragraph 3 of Turner and the separate considerations of the reasonableness or adequacy of the preventative steps taken in the requesting state at paragraph 6 of Turner ([¶116]). The Appellant’s condition after extradition would be so serious and his long history of impulsive self-harm and suicide attempts were such that he would sooner or later commit suicide whatever steps were taken. In any event the detection and prevention of his impulsive suicidal tendencies would be extremely difficult. This was Dr Attard’s evidence and the Judge never properly addressed this point.