AC-2024-LON-001762 - [2025] EWHC 2293 (Admin)

On 13 March 2024, a Senior Extradition Caseworker at the Home Office made a written submission to the Minister of State for Security regarding the Warrant and the Request (“the Submission”). The Submission had 5 annexes which included a copy of the judgment of District Judge Sternberg dated 7 June 2023 (Annex E). Contrary to what is pleaded by the SSHD at [9(d)] of her Detailed Grounds of Defence, and stated at [11(d)] of her skeleton argument the documents put before the Minister did not include the Request or the Warrant. Annexes C and D were draft letters to the Interested Parties and are therefore not material for present purposes.

Under the heading “Issue”, the Submission stated that competing requests for the extradition of the Claimant had been received from the United States and Portugal and that it was for the Minister to decide which request should be given precedence. The Minister was also told that the matter was complicated by the fact that, on 6 March 2024, the District Judge had ordered the Claimant’s extradition to Portugal because he was unaware of the SSHD’s Order of 28 July 2023 that the Claimant be extradited to the USA. However, the impression given by the Submission was that the Minister had full discretion as to which extradition claim should take precedence.

The “Recommendation” was that the Minister agree that the Request take precedence. He was told that a decision was required by 14 March 2024 because, after this date, the Claimant could apply to be discharged in relation to the Warrant. A footnote explained that:

“The judge hearing the Portuguese request was not made aware of the US request, and therefore accepted Santos Coelho’s consent to extradition. The legislation does not permit this error to be rectified. As such, Coelho must be surrendered to Portugal by 15 March 2024; if he is not, Coelho may apply to be discharged from extradition proceedings pertaining to Portugal. See Annex B for details.” (emphasis added)

As noted above, in fact District Judge Snow had ordered that the Claimant should not be extradited until such time as the SSHD had made a decision under section 179. So the SSHD was not under any specific time pressure.

The Submission then said, under the heading “Considerations”, that where there are competing Part 1 and Part 2 requests “the Secretary of State may decide which one takes precedence”. It stated that section 179(3) of the 2003 Act “sets out four obligatory but not exhaustive issues which the Secretary of State must take into account when deciding which request should take precedence”. These were then listed and it was stated that “More detail is at Annex A together with information (based on Counsel’s advice in a previous case) on other issues which may be considered”.

The Submission went on to say, at [5]:

“Our full consideration is at Annex B. We assess the following as the key points:

• Both offences concern identical allegations and it is impossible to adjudicate which request should take precedence on the known facts in each request.

• Santos Coelho is a Portuguese national who was residing in his home country at the time of his alleged offending. The stated victims and witnesses in each request, however, are based in the US; on its face, a trial in the US would thus be more appropriate.

• The US’s provisional request for Santos Coelho was made almost two years prior to the Portuguese request.

• Santos Coelho stands accused in both requests.

We have also deliberated on Santos Coelho’s consent to being extradited to Portugal. This is a neutral factor in our view.” (emphasis added)

The highlighted statements in this passage are alleged by the Claimant, under Ground 2, to be material errors of fact.

After the section on Considerations, the Submission referred to the positive reasonable grounds decision by the SCA on 1 September 2023:

“The Home Office accepted there were reasonable grounds to believe Santos Coelho was exploited between 2014 and 2021 in relation to the development of the website facilitating his alleged criminality in both requests. The Conclusive Grounds decision is currently outstanding. The District Judge, hearing the US extradition request, stated he was unable to make a finding on whether Santos Coelho had been groomed, as claimed, and that it is a matter for the competent authority (see paragraph 148 of judgment in the US request, Annex E)”.