Our Mission: To work for fair trials based on international standards of justice and defend the rights of those facing charges in a country other than their own.

Our Work: We campaign for fairer cross-border justice by helping people to defend their fair trial rights, making expert policy interventions, conducting innovative research and providing training and networking opportunities for human rights defenders from all over the world.

In this issue

Casework Update for 2009

Helping people facing criminal charges outside their own country has remained at the heart of FTI’s work during 2009. During the course of the year we have helped hundreds of people to defend their fair trial rights and have fought shocking miscarriages of justice all over the world. We have increased our ability to do this by employing more casework staff, bringing in a full-time intern and growing the pool of professionals willing to give freely of their time and expertise.

During the course of the year we have had some major successes including:

 - In April, after two and a half years in an Iraqi prison, Mohammed Hussein was pardoned and re-united with his family in Birmingham. Mohammed was wrongly convicted after a sham trial lasting just 10 minutes.

 - In September, Michael Shields was freed after we helped to persuade Jack Straw to grant him a royal pardon. Michael had spent four years in jail following an unfair conviction by a Bulgarian court.

The fight for justice for many others will continue into 2010, including:

 - Patrick Malluzzo who has already spent six years in an Indian jail and who continues to be denied the right to appeal his unsafe conviction.

 - Serena Wylde who is still living with the threat of a prison sentence in Portugal for making a confidential complaint to a regulator about a lawyer.

 - Deborah Dark who is still being pursued by France to serve a prison sentence imposed by a court in a hearing neither she nor her lawyer knew anything about.

 - Andrew Symeou who was unjustly extradited to Greece in July of this year and has now spent months in a Greek jail awaiting trial, denied bail because he is not a Greek citizen.

Report on consular assistance for defendants

Our work at Fair Trials International, defending the rights of people facing charges abroad, leaves us in no doubt that consular assistance is a vital public service. For those arrested outside their own country, detained hundreds of miles from home, unable to speak the local language, ignorant of the local legal system and with no idea of who to turn to for help, consular assistance provides a lifeline.

This important public service has, however, been subject to almost no detailed examination. With the publication of its report, Fair Trials International has begun the process of filling this gap in knowledge and understanding.

With funding from the Nuffield Foundation, we have compared the policies and practices of American, Australian, British, Dutch and German Ministries of Foreign Affairs in consular assistance and trial attendance. We have also looked at how Ministry officials and defence lawyers perceive the advantages and disadvantages of consular attendance at trial, including the relationship between trial attendance and the observance of fair trial rights.

The Executive summary (in English, German and Dutch) and a copy of the full report (in English) can be found here.

£7,000 raised for FTI’s Justice in Europe Campaign

We would like to thank the members of The Funding Network who generously donated nearly £7,000 to FTI at their Festive Funding Event on 2nd December held at Rathbones Greenbank in New Bond Street. The Funding Network enables individuals to join together to fund social change projects.

FTI’s Chief Executive, Jago Russell, and FTI client Deborah Dark gave a brief presentation outlining the work of FTI, with particular emphasis on our recently launched ‘Justice in Europe’ campaign, which aims to improve Europe’s fast-track extradition system, the European Arrest Warrant.

We are extremely grateful to the team at The Funding Network for organising the event and to the TFN members who supported our work so generously. We would also like to express our gratitude to Deborah, who has shown great courage in speaking about her unjustified ordeal under the European Arrest Warrant to help FTI campaign for change so that others do not suffer the same injustice.

Read more about the Justice in Europe campaign.

Donations towards the campaign can be made here.

Season's Greetings from Fair Trials International

To everyone that has supported Fair Trials International's work during 2009, we would like to wish you an enjoyable break over the holiday period.

Read more at www.fairtrials.net

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Fair Trials International
3rd Floor, 59 Carter Lane,
London EC4V 5AQ
Tel: 0044 (0) 207 762 6400
Fax: 0044 (0) 207 762 6401
Email: office@fairtrials.net

Registered charity no. 1079079