The French Supreme Court has ruled on the case of an American national arrested on March 02, 2024, on the basis of a request for provisional arrest from the government of the People’s Republic of China for the purpose of criminal prosecution for embezzlement.
On March 04, 2024, she was presented to the public prosecutor, who notified her of the request for provisional arrest and placed her under judicial supervision.
The Chinese government sent the extradition request to the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs on April 18, 2024, and the Attorney General received it on the following April 30. To ensure that the procedure was in order, he asked the Chinese authorities for additional documentation.
As a result, on May 22, 2024, the U.S. citizen filed a request for release from judicial supervision, on the grounds that she had not been notified of the formal extradition request within the statutory timeframe.
However, on May 31, 2024, the Attorney General notified her of the extradition request, accompanied by a copy of her photograph, a copy of the arrest warrant issued on May 28, 2014 in Chinese, unsigned, and its French translation, and a copy of the Interpol red notice in Chinese, translated into French.
The decision to approve the issuance of the arrest warrant by a judicial authority reached the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs on June 27, 2024, in response to the French authorities’ request for additional information.
The U.S. citizen then declared that she did not consent to his extradition.
The Examining Magistrate’s Chamber rejected her request for release from judicial supervision, a decision against which the national invoked article 8 §4 of the Extradition Treaty between the French Republic and the People’s Republic of China, arguing that the French government had not been informed by the Chinese government of the extradition request. It also invoked the provisions of article 8, 1§ b) to denounce the absence from the extradition request of the original or authenticated copy of the arrest warrant issued by the Chinese authorities.
The Chambre de l’instruction did not dispute that the extradition request sent within the sixty-day time limit was not accompanied by the original arrest warrant issued by a public security office, but only by an unsigned copy.
For the Cour de cassation, it follows from articles 8 and 12, § 4, of the bilateral extradition treaty between the government of the French Republic and the government of the People’s Republic of China that the provisional arrest of a person ceases if, within sixty days of the person’s arrest, the requested Party has not received the extradition request, which must include all the documents referred to in the aforementioned article 8.
It follows that in the absence of the said documents in the proceedings, on expiry of the aforementioned time limit, the extradition order or the judicial supervision order issued against the person sought must be terminated.
Receipt of additional documents sent by the requesting Party in support of the extradition request after expiry of the aforementioned sixty-day period shall not have the effect of maintaining the measures imposed on the person sought.
In view of the conditions under which the proceedings had been conducted, the Court of Appeal’s decision was logically subject to cassation.
Cass. crim., September 10, 2024, n°24-83.504